Banking on Freedom: Black Women in U.S. Finance Before the New Deal – A Reading and Conversation

Presented by Red Salmon Arts

Lilia Rosas talks with Shennette Garrett-Scott about her newly released book Banking on Freedom: Black Women in U.S. Finance Before the New Deal from Columbia University Press, the first full-length history of finance capitalism that centers black women and the banking institutions and networks they built from the eve of the Civil War to the Great Depression. Banking on Freedom offers an unparalleled account of how black women carved out economic, social, and political power in contexts shaped by sexism, racism, and capitalist exploitation.

About the Author: Shennette Garrett-Scott is assistant professor of history and African American studies at the University of Mississippi.

Red Salmon Arts is a Native American/Chican@/x/Latin@/x-based cultural arts organization with a history of working within indigenous communities of Austin since 1983.

This project is supported in part by the Cultural Arts Division of the City of Austin Economic Development Department.