Our Pillars

Narrator:

Everyone has a racial identity. It shapes our history, reality and our future possibilities.

Race and wealth are connected in many ways. For example, home ownership, access to education, credit, and debt.

When people are able to accumulate wealth, they enjoy economic security for generations.

And while some people inherit wealth, others accumulate debt.

Wealth inequality is rooted in racial injustices from our past. Even systems that should benefit everyone, don't.

For example, the GI Bill was intended to help all World War II veterans build stable and productive lives.

But in the years following the war, many non-white veterans were only offered low paying jobs.

Colleges and universities denied their applications. And lending discrimination was widespread.

In New York and Northern New Jersey of the 67,000 home loans backed by the GI Bill, fewer than 100 supported non-white veterans.

This discrimination continued for generations.

Two-thirds of all Black World War II veterans lived in the South.

In the summer of 1974, 3,000 home loans were issued to veterans in Mississippi, only two were awarded to Black veterans.

In Southern states, the GI Bill worsened the economic and educational gap between Black and white families.

Today, because of this racial wealth gap, student loan debt disproportionately affects people of color long after they leave school. 

They take out more loans, are paid less to work and have fewer resources to pay off their debts.

Still, communities come together to support each other from mutual aid to lending circles.

We know change is possible.

Join the Smithsonian's "Our Shared Future: Reckoning With Our Racial Past" to better understand what was, and create what can be.