Join us for a reading and book talk with Shennette Garrett-Scott, author of Banking on Freedom: Black Women in U.S. Finance Before the New Deal. This event is co-sponsored by Virginia Humanities and will be free and open to the public.
Between 1888 and 1930, African Americans opened more than a hundred banks and thousands of other financial institutions. Banking on Freedom: Black Women in U.S. Finance Before the New Deal explores this rich period of Black financial innovation and its transformative impact on U.S. capitalism through the story of the St. Luke Bank in Richmond, Virginia: the first and only bank run by Black women. Banking on Freedom offers an unparalleled account of how Black women carved out economic, social, and political power in contexts shaped by sexism, white supremacy, and capitalist exploitation. Garrett-Scott reveals the ways gender, race, and class shaped the meanings of wealth and risk in U.S. capitalism and society.
Shennette Garrett-Scott is an associate professor of history and African American studies at the University of Mississippi. Her research focuses on race, gender, and capitalism. Her newly released book, Banking on Freedom: Black Women in U.S. Finance Before the New Deal from Columbia University Press, illuminates how African American women shaped U.S. finance and capitalism from the end of the Civil War to the Great Depression. She is featured in the PBS documentary BOSS: The Black Experience in Business. Follow her on Twitter at @EbonRebel.