As we prepare to honor Black History Month, I read a troubling report regarding the Black-white wealth gap.
Last year, the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive think tank, and the National Community Reinvestment Coalition released a report that found that for every dollar of white family income, Black people had 58 cents in 1967. The improvement since then has been remarkably incremental: “In 2021, Black Americans had 62 cents to white household’s dollar,” the report said. “With this same rate of progress, it would take Black households 513 years to reach income parity with white households.”
The Brookings Institution, in a recently published article titled “Black wealth is increasing, but so is the racial wealth gap,” examines the latest data from the Federal Reserve Board’s Survey of Consumer Finances. The Brookings analysis finds that median wealth increased for all racial and ethnic groups from 2019 and 2022. Although Black Americans saw their median wealth go from $27,970 to $44,890 during this period, their wealth still fell behind advances other racial groups saw. “In 2022, median wealth was approximately $62,000 for nonwhite Latino or Hispanic households; $285,000 for white households; and $536,000 for Asian American households,” the Brookings report says.
Research conducted by the Rand Corp., a global policy think tank, on the U.S. racial wealth gap suggests that “under current conditions and without intervention, it is unclear if and how the racial wealth gap could ever close over a meaningful time horizon.”
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It is insanity to believe the racial wealth gap will close without significant government investment. The Black wealth gap started in 1619 when the first African slaves were forcibly brought to Virginia for the purpose of free labor. The institution of slavery lasted for 246 years. During the Civil War, Gen. William T. Sherman attempted to address wealth inequity through Special Field Orders No. 15, that would have granted 40 acres of land each to 18,000 formally enslaved families. The order was supported by President Abraham Lincoln. After Lincoln’s assassination, President Andrew Johnson issued a proclamation returning confiscated land to Southern owners.
I believe that of all injustices, the wealth gap is the most pernicious — in which past injustices perpetuate modern-day suffering that results from inhibited access to capital, health care, education, justice and housing.
I am a product of the Jim Crow South, and we did not have anywhere near the political representation that exists today. With persistent racial disparities, economically oppressed communities and record numbers of Black elected leaders, the following questions must be asked:
* Are Black politicians subconsciously supporting second-class citizenship for Black Americans?
* Have Black leaders been conditioned to use power to enrich themselves and their families to the exclusion of their constituents?
Black leaders must act with a sense of urgency because future generations are dependent upon equity. Our citizens cannot wait another 500 years to close the wealth gap.
In Illinois, the state’s first Black lieutenant governor and speaker of the House are in a position to promote policies to close the wealth gap. The state’s chief executive, Gov. J.B. Pritzker, on the other hand has been caught on tape making racially insensitive remarks regarding Black politicians. This happened while Pritzker was advising then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich about an appointee for Barack Obama’s vacant state Senate seat. Pritzker apologized for saying that then-Secretary of State Jesse White was the least “offensive” and will “cover you on the African American thing.”
But Black Illinoisans do not need apologies; we need sincere actions to close the wealth gap. Pritzker and the Democrats let the Invest in Kids scholarship program lapse. The program helped many Black children get a quality education. Mayor Brandon Johnson spent $138 million on migrants last year, according to WTTW-Ch. 11, and more than $59 million came from Chicago taxpayers. True leaders use their power to serve the people who elected them.
The federal and state governments are spending billions in taxpayer money on people who have entered the U.S. illegally. Black Americans who face the widest disparities from wealth, health, housing and employment are not being prioritized. When flyers on a plane are briefed on safety, the attendant tells them that in the event of an emergency, they should secure their own oxygen mask first before they help others. Likewise, policy leaders must help their own citizens who have suffered from centuries of discrimination that have not been overcome — before helping others.
If leaders fail to act, a race-related event similar to George Floyd’s murder will cause greater looting and destruction in American cities. The inequities of slavery, Jim Crow laws, redlining, criminal justice, discrimination in labor unions and targeting of Black borrowers for subprime loans can be overcome with wealth equity.
The following are suggestions to close the Black-white wealth gap:
* Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, Pritzker, Johnson and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle should provide scholarship tuition to the elementary schools of parents’ choice, in-state college and trade school tuition, job training, housing and health care for the neediest Black households.
* Black faith leaders must demand politicians enact policies to bridge the wealth gap.
* President Joe Biden should issue an executive order instructing the Small Business Administration to improve access to capital for Black small businesses.
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* The federal government should make significant investments in historically Black colleges and universities and predominantly Black-serving institutions. Tax incentives should be used to allow the neediest Black students to attend.
Our elected leaders are paid by us to solve problems. The Black wealth gap can be resolved by prioritizing Black households for investment.
I write this commentary to make those comfortable with supporting systemic barriers to wealth equality uncomfortable.
Willie Wilson is a Chicago business owner and a former 2023 mayoral candidate.
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