Out of nearly 71,000 mortgages insured by the GI Bill in New York and northeastern New Jersey in 1950, less than 1 percent went to nonwhite veterans. Yet home ownership was key to accruing wealth. White American families would eventually amass a median net worth nearly ten times that of Black families. Put another way, the exclusion of African Americans from real estate—not to mention college, white-collar jobs, and the ability to vote—laid the foundations of a lasting poverty that Dasani would inherit.
