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The Racial Wealth Gap: A Brief History

byMehrsa Baradaran

Legal scholar Mehrsa Baradaran traces the racial wealth gap through policies and institutions that created opportunity for white households while excluding or extracting wealth from Black Americans. She examines slavery, emancipation, land, housing, banking, credit, labor, taxation, and federal programs to show that the divide did not arise from individual choices or cultural difference. The concise history connects past design with present outcomes in homeownership, debt, inheritance, and financial security. Baradaran argues that a gap produced by public action cannot be closed by financial education alone and requires structural repair.

Publisher

W. W. Norton & Company

Publication date

2026-02-03

Format

Hardcover

Pages

192

ISBN

9780393881820