“Wall Street got black slave blood stains. Which means, we built this city.
And never got scraps while the devil got fat. In fact, reparations for niggas in desperation. Fuck money, get my kid a real education. Blood money spills had a real revelation, Southside make you realize there’s still segregation.”- J Cole on the Song “New York Times” from his Born Sinner Album. What exactly is Wall Street? Wall Street is a financial district located in New York City that has become the world’s principal financial center. Wall street is home to the New York Stock Exchange, The Federal Reserve Bank of NYC and countless commercial banks and insurance companies. Because of the abundance of chief institutions on Wall Street it has become a symbol of wealth, power and influence. It has become the trading hub for the world’s largest economy. Physically, Wall Street only takes up a few blocks in the Burrough of Manhattan but in every other aspect of life, it is a large looming example of the worst elements of capitalism. You may be wondering who oversees Wall Street? But there is no real answer. AND THAT IS THE PROBLEM!! There is no one to be held accountable for the shortcomings of Wall Street and capitalism. There is no single person or entity in charge, but there is a complicated interlacing of individuals and institutions like investment banks, hedge funds and traders that operate collectively shaping the economic and financial blueprint of not only the United States, but the whole world. The reason why I say that there is danger when dealing with Wall Street and its lack of accountability is because Capitalism has a re-occurring theme of ruthless exploitation. Nowhere is this more prevalent then when you look at the history of Wall Street and you clearly see that it was built on Slave labor of Black Americans.
Black Americans who were once enslaved built Wall Street. In every sense of the meaning. Black Slaves literally built the original wall that Wall Street gets its name from. Unfortunately, this same place, was the first place where an organized slave auction took place. On December 14th 1711 The New York City Common Council made Wall Street the city’s first official slave market. This market operated from 1711 to 1762 while NYC remained a key hub for slave trade until the 1850s. In 1711, New York City officials decreed that ‘‘all Negro and Indian slaves that are let out to hire . . . be hired at the Market house at the Wall Street Slip.’’ Beyond the idea of Black Americans physically building Wall Street, the profits and financial success of the United States and the world still flow through this place where black and red people were traded and where the wealth of a region was built on slavery. On the eve of the civil war in 1861, there were about 4 million slaves. The Slaves market value was around 4 billion dollars. Having a Black Slave was like having a free American Express card in those days. Black Americans were never ever ever ever allowed to reap the benefits that slavery granted America. Blacks were intentionally frozen in this real-life monopoly game and have been outside and underneath the economic system since. From 1851-1860 alone, Black Americans produced 1.5 billion (54 billion in today’s numbers) dollars’ worth of cotton. THATS ONLY COTTON. Not including rice, tobacco, wheat etc. And that’s only 9 years. The actual dollar amount from 300 years of working for free that blacks have been frozen from economically is probably in the trillions. Theres no way to calculate the number, but it is egregious.
To truly understand the monopoly that Wall Street has created one must analyze the relationship between Northern businessmen and Southern Agriculturalists. Because the civil war was fought over what slavery produced many people assume these two demographics of people were at odds with each other. But the truth is, they were in concert working together in order to create the largest collection of wealth in history. Crops that were produced in the South were processed and sold by Northern manufacturers and merchants. Both the North and South relied on one another creating economic ties. The relationship doesn’t stop there. United States Banks from the North, funded the operation and expansion of slave-run plantations. Most corporations profited from slavery with Banks probably being the biggest beneficiaries. Commercial Banks directly and knowingly interacted with the slave system. Banks were used as facilitators meaning the Banks accepted enslaved people as collateral for loans. If a slave owner was unable to pay their debt, the Bank would take ownership of the enslaved person. Banks such as JP Morgan/Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo either provided loans to slave owners who wanted to expand their plantations, provided financial support for the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade and lastly compensated previous slave owners after slavery was abolished. It is estimated that JP morgan accepted over 13,000 slaves as collateral and that JP Morgan the Bank itself owned about 1200 slaves. Think about that… THE SECOND LARGEST BANK OWNED SLAVES. This basically stamped that Blacks were looked at as property. Insurance companies are not let off the hook either. Like I stated before, damn near every corporation has benefited from slavery. Insurance Companies such as Aetna, New York Life and AIG all made a financial killing from slavery by helping to protect the financial investments of slave owners. These insurance companies sold policies on the lives of slaves to slave holders to cover the loss, injury, death, and or escape of a slave. By 1807 the United States Government created an act that prohibited the importation of slaves. Because no more slaves could be brought into the country, this act resulted in a significant increase in the life of a slave. With the swipe of a pen, the value of their lives multiplied (not in a positive manner). And the insurance companies took advantage by putting a policy on each one of the slaves. By 1860, over 60% of all life policies were enslaved people. Insurance companies also protected slave owners and businesses from collapse by providing risk management for slave voyages by providing coverage for the ships crossing the Atlantic Ocean. It is estimated that 40% of the insurance premium income during the 18th century for insurance companies came from insured slave voyages.
Slavery was an overwhelmingly important part of the American economy. In my opinion it was the single greatest driving force that has set the stage for the current system we live in. With that being overstood, it is clear that Black Americans have been frozen out of these successes at large and that this problem has never been addressed. The wealth that many large conglomerates in America have obtained can be traced directly to American Chattel Slavery. The discussion now becomes how are Black Americans re-paid or compensated? Throughout our recent history this has been a fiery debate from people like myself who can see the clear cause and effect history versus people who believe that because slavery was 160 years ago that these problems are long gone and do not hold any relevance. Black Americans have only been “free” for roughly 160 years. Slavery lasted almost 300 years. Just off the strength that Blacks haven’t been “free” longer than they were held captive should give you an answer. For hundreds of years these people worked for ZERO PAY and had a ZERO quota on teaching them how to read and write. There was no possible way for this community to create wealth and be self-sufficient. This is why the call for reparations is vital. Most efforts to pay back Black Americans are squashed. In 1865 Union General William T Sherman issued Special Field Order NO.15. This is where the term “40 acres and a mule” was created. This field order was created to assign land in southern states such as Georgia, Florida and South Carolina in order to redress the previous wrongdoings to Black Americans. The idea was to give them land and resources to be able to support themselves and create wholly independent financial structures. This ideology was short lived because President Andrew Johnson, one of the most popular racists of all time began to reverse these efforts. Johnson was a confederate sympathizer and wanted to protect the feelings of poor white southerners (sounds like the president in office currently). First, President Johnson offered mass pardons to Southern landowners who betrayed the United States and the Union. Partner that with returning the land to these former Slave owners AND actually compensating them in the form of cash payments. Previous Slave owners were paid 300 dollars (roughly 7700 in today’s dollars) for every freed slave. Some slaves including ones that were Blacksmiths could have even been valued at 1800 dollars. Former enslavers were paid while the formally enslaved received nothing. Thanks to Andrew Johnson tens of thousands of people were pushed out of land they were promised, and this was a second wave of racism just as detrimental as slavery.
Lastly, there is a myth when it comes to reparations about slavery. Many people who are anti-reparations for Black Americans say that ending slavery destroyed the economy for many. But that isn’t true. The money that was accumulated during slavery didn’t just disappear. The idea that because slavery is gone so are the benefits that went with it are false and just plain ludicrous and is a dangerous rhetoric for Black Americans. The idea that wealth disappeared, leads corporations to have a lack of accountability for what happened. A 2019 groundbreaking study from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that after one generation that white slave holding families had not only recovered their wealth but redirected their capital into the modern economy. Helping prove the point that this wealth did not “vanish.” Although many of poor whites in the South were pro slavery, they did not reap the benefits and were not heavily invested in. The profit from the billions of pounds of tobacco, rice, cotton, wheat and sugar that were produced from agriculture are now sitting in vaults on Wall Street that will never be touched. These poor Southern whites and their attitudes towards Blacks helped create this monstrosity of wealth for these large corporations but these same poor whites got nothing out of the deal. The corporations pulled off a major heist of both communities using race and hierarchy to accomplish this feat. Many of these corporations do feel guilty about their actions from previous centuries but there is no real accountability that holds their feet to the fire. We already established that JP Morgan and Bank of America made unspeakable amounts of money that can’t be quantified. Both of these corporations have came out recently and apologized for their role in the slave trade. Both companies offered to donate 5 million dollars to institutions and programs related to Black and African Americans. One might say that this is nice of them, but I think that is bullshit. I see it as them putting a Band-Aid over a bullet hole. They know what they stole was worth more than 10 million dollars but refuse to give any type of real resources. This is the game that they play. Steal a cake from us and give us back crumbs (if that) to feel good about our situation. Companies like Aetna and AIG have acknowledged their role in slavery but have also come out and said that they have no plans to make reparations of any sort. Pretty shameful of these large corporations that we can track their history and wrongdoing but can’t do anything about it. That is the society that America has become, the enslavers are compensated, the bad guys can acknowledge wrongdoing with no punishment all meanwhile the little helpless guy continues to be stepped on, exploited and abused. In order to Power the People this ruthless cycle of exploitation must be changed. In the Words of My Father Keylen Blackmon “absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
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