Juneteenth: Embracing the Unbreakable Spirit of Opportunity
Trees on a mountain seen through the fog
Adapted from an earlier article:
Juneteenth commemorates a day of profound liberation and triumph. On June 19, 1865, news of emancipation reached the deepest parts of the former Confederacy in Galveston, Texas, marking the end of slavery in the U.S. This day represents the ultimate victory of freedom over oppression, a monumental moment in human history. Imagine the overwhelming joy and renewed hope felt by those who learned they were free after enduring the brutality of slavery. This sense of liberation and empowerment is what I want people who feel outmatched by challenges to tap into today.
When we reflect on Juneteenth, it is crucial to celebrate the resilience and strength of those who fought for freedom. It was a time of joy, celebration, and communal gathering, as the long-awaited promise of freedom was finally realized. But it was also a moment for reflection and remembrance, acknowledging the struggles and sacrifices made. This day stands as a powerful reminder of the progress made and the continuous journey toward equality and justice.
However, true empowerment and progress come from shared economic power and prosperity. As a country, we will only ultimately prevail when leadership reflects the community and when the default is shared economic power. This means putting business ownership and commercial activity at the forefront of our minds for all people. I want to see opportunity for all people, including white and the growing immigrant population. America only stays ahead by unleashing the ingenuity of its people and not placing artificial limits. Government and charity have their place as supports, but they cannot be the foundation our economy and people stand on.
Black achievement should not be an anomaly or an exception. It should be the standard outcome of a society where all people have access to the conditions that enable success. I grew up in the lineage of slaves, with artifacts that include segregation, deprivation, redlining, injustice, and other practices that created general economic insecurity. These experiences shaped my professional and civic pursuits to help people live their best possible lives by gaining democratic access to opportunity and capital, setting the stage for shared prosperity.
When people read my business card and see that I am the chairman and CEO of a highly esteemed community bank, they often create scenarios to explain how a Black man achieved this. Many assume I came from “good stock” or was born elsewhere. The truth is that I lived in extreme poverty in East St. Louis and north St. Louis, was orphaned at age 8, and was a foster child in multiple settings until I “aged out,” still hoping to make something of my life. My experience is shared by many accomplished Black and brown people, as well as many women.
Time and again, when Black people demonstrated initiative and ingenuity in creating wealth, there were schemes to extract it. Among these was the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, when white mobs looted, burned, and destroyed more than 35 square blocks of the wealthiest Black community in the country, known as "Black Wall Street.” In more recent history, a large financial institution systematically targeted working-class Blacks in Baltimore with subprime mortgages in 2009, calling them “ghetto loans.” This phenomenon extended to every metropolitan area of our nation, resulting in a foreclosure crisis that disproportionately affected Black homeowners, with more than 240,000 losing homes they had owned. These staggering consequences harm generations by erasing capital investments in homes and future value gains.
In its place, and to great celebration, this institution has increased its charitable giving to those communities. This actually goes against the free market ideals to which we strive: the right to own private property, the right to own a business and keep all that business's profits, the right to freedom of competition, and the right to freedom of choice. Charity is important, but it is no replacement for hard-earned capital and commercial activity. In this context, charity becomes a seductive distraction from the need for true economic empowerment.
Systems that perpetuate the growing wealth and income gaps by race are well documented. According to the Brookings Institute, the median wealth for white households was $285,000 in 2022, while Black households had a median wealth of $45,000, and Hispanic households had $61,000. This means that white households had about 6.3 times more wealth than Black households and approximately 4.7 times more than Hispanic households. Reports in late 2020 documented the still-widening wealth gap between Black and white households, as the effects of the pandemic and looming recession were felt.
The unacknowledged truth is that current practices perpetuate the persistent Black-white wealth gap that has accelerated from centuries of policies that systematically harm Black Americans’ ability to build, maintain, and pass on wealth. These practices perpetuate learned helplessness, which occurs when communities continuously face a negative, uncontrollable situation and when promises are made but not kept. It should come as no surprise that people who repeatedly experience such circumstances stop trying. Opportunity and access mean giving people an equitable chance. But to those on the other side who stop leaning in, this is actually not the spirit of those who waited so many years to hear the news on Juneteenth—their spirit was one of we will bend but will not break.
Some time ago I wrote, “The way forward is through shared power, through policies that promote justice, and through inclusive economic prosperity.” I continue to believe that economic mobility impacts everything – from the ability to generate ideas to business ownership, from justice to education, and from the propensity for disease to health care access. Economic mobility is shaped by a democratic approach to opening the way to opportunity and access to capital. It is also achieved by consistently showing up with no excuses and executing.
When we succeed in shaping systems that no longer place the false limits of race, gender, and economic origins on exceptionality, we won’t be surprised when an inner-city kid, born into poverty and raised in foster care, hands you his business card, and it says, “chairman and CEO.”