The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap

by Mehrsa Baradaran

On the campaign trail and as president, Jimmy Carter portrayed the country as postracial. He chastised his Democratic primary opponent, Jesse Jackson, for overemphasizing racial problems, which he referred to as “an issue that’s already divided the people,” yet he enthusiastically embraced the once-divisive leader of the previous era, stating “I see an America in which Martin Luther King’s dream is our national dream.”1 President Ronald Reagan also harshly denounced racism and embraced King’s dream. When Reagan made King’s birthday a national holiday in 1983, he announced, “We’ve made historic strides since Rosa Parks refused to go to the back of the bus. As a democratic people, we can take pride in the knowledge that we Americans recognized a grave injustice and took action to correct it.”2 Yet he had consistently maintained opposition to civil rights laws because he believed them to be unnecessary government intrusions into private markets.3