Hybrid Hearing - An Enduring Legacy: The Role of Financial Institutions in the... (EventID=114620)

Video Description

Connect with the House Financial Services Committee Get the latest news: https://democrats-financialservices.house.gov/ Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HouseFinancialCmte Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/FSCDems ___________________________________ On Tuesday, April 05, 2022, at 2:00 p.m. (ET) Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Green and Ranking Member Emmer will host a virtual hearing entitled, “An Enduring Legacy: The Role of Financial Institutions in the Horrors of Slavery and the Need for Atonement." ___________________________________ Witnesses for this one-panel hearing will be: • Dr. Daina Ramey Berry, Oliver H. Radkey Regents Professor and Chair of the Department of History, University of Texas at Austin • Dr. William A. Darity, Jr., Samuel DuBois Cook Professor of Public Policy, African and African American Studies, Economics, and Business, Duke University • Dr. Sven Beckert, Laird Bell Professor of History, Harvard University • Nikitra Bailey, Senior Vice President of Public Policy, National Fair Housing Alliance • Dr. Sarah Federman, Assistant Professor at the School of Public and International Affairs, University of Baltimore ___________________________________ Background This hearing will examine the role of financial institutions in the practice of slavery in the United States. Historical records have shown that banks provided lending to purchase enslaved people and accepted enslaved people as collateral for loans. In certain known instances of default on said loans, banks took ownership of enslaved people and were in the position of potentially selling them to another owner. Certain insurance companies wrote policies on enslaved persons and provided payment upon an enslaved person’s death for the slaveholder to seek a replacement. The financing of slavery also resulted in business gained and capital accrued by such institutions that continue to exist to this day or that have been merged with or acquired by existing institutions, such as J.P. Morgan Chase and Citibank, as detailed in existing literature on this topic: As the American financial system matured, a wide range of domestic banks [sought to profit from the slave trade]. Two of these, Citizens’ Bank and Canal Bank of Louisiana, which accepted roughly 13,000 slaves as collateral and came to own well over a thousand slaves outright, were destined to become cogs in the great financial wheel of J. P. Morgan Chase. Likewise, Moses Taylor, director of the City Bank of New York, the forerunner of Citibank, managed the monetary fruits of the endless exertions of slaves on large sugar plantations and was also deeply involved in the illicit importation of slaves into Cuba. This hearing will also examine whether and to what extent financial institutions that financed and profited from slavery have taken or, should be required to take, actions to redress their participation in and ill-gotten benefits from the slave trade and the lasting harms to the descendants of and communities affected by slavery. First, to begin contemplating what form this atonement might take, a fuller historical reckoning must be conducted by banks, investment firms, and insurance companies to determine the extent of their involvement in financing slavery. Then, an assessment should be made as to the most meaningful and impactful atonement that might be provided by these institutions. Much of the examination of these matters has been in the context of a narrow set of laws applied to a very small number of institutions, as reviewed below. This hearing will attempt to elucidate upon the history of the financing of slavery and advance forward the cause of atonement for those financial practices. ... Hearing page: https://democrats-financialservices.house.gov/events/eventsingle.aspx?EventID=409255