A dirty secret in U.S. history is how local property taxes have been used to steal massive amounts of land and money from Black people, for the last 160 years. The Black Tax, a new book by historian Andrew Kahrl, exposes these scams that helped create the colossal racial wealth gap of today. The damage to Black Americans? More than $600 billion in straight-up theft – and trillions in lost generational wealth!

SHOW NOTES

Guest: Andrew W. Kahrl

Andrew Kahrl is a Professor at the University of Virgina. His research focuses on the social and political history of racial inequality in the United States. He teaches courses on African American history, race and real estate, and U.S. urban history.

Books by Andrew Kahrl:

• The Black Tax: 150 Years of Theft, Exploitation, and Dispossession in America
• The Land Was Ours: How Black Beaches Became White Wealth in the Coastal South
  

Related readings and resources:

• The Whiteness of Wealth: How The Tax System Impoverishes Black Americans - And How We Can Fix It by Dorothy A. Brown
• “Blacks in South Struggle to Keep the Little Land They Have Left” (NY Times 1972)
• Federation of Southern Cooperatives (Land Assistance Fund)

HIGHLIGHTS OF EPISODE:

[10:55] Over-taxing of Black-owned property

[13:54] Under-servicing of Black communities

[22:18] The tax sale scam

[26:06] The saga of Evelina Jenkins

[29:08] The tab: damages to Black Americans for stolen property

[39:32] Andrew Kahrl’s proposals to repair the tax system

[42:22] Importance of solidarity to creating a more just system

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