Union Gen. William Sherman’s field order during the Civil War allowed formerly enslaved people to establish 40-acre farms on federal land, according to the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank’s recent research. The idea was to help freed enslaved people get a new start; it was the first attempt at narrowing the economic gap between Whites and Blacks. Although the plan may have helped, it never achieved its goals.
- In The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. Du Bois described the situation: “He felt his poverty; without a cent, without a home, without land, tools, or savings, he had entered into competition with rich, landed, skilled neighbors. To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships.”
The wealth gap remains, with the average per capita wealth for individual White Americans at $338,093 in 2019 but only $60,126 for Black Americans. Learn more: