The collapse of Freedman’s Bank / Remembering Abdullah Ibrahim

This is Fresh Air. I'm David B. Cooley. Today is J. Named for the day in eighteen sixty five when enslaved people of African descent in Galveston, Texas finally learned of their freedom from the system of slavery. effectively ending slavery in this country. We're going to listen to Tanya Mosley's twenty twenty four interview with Justine Hill Edwards about the story of a bank established in eighteen sixty five for formerly enslaved people.

Here's Tanya. In July of eighteen four Waves of black Americans rush to their local bank branches. To find out if the news they were hearing was true. The Freedmen's Savings and Trust Company, a bank for newly emancipated black Americans, was abruptly shutting down.

And patrons at bank branches throughout the country were met with locked doors and cashier who had to break the news. Most of their savings were gone. The Rise and Fall of the Freedmen's Savings and Trust Company is the subject of a new book by my guest, historian Justine Hill Edwards. In the years after the Civil War, tens of thousands of formerly enslaved people deposited millions into the Freedmen's Bank. With high hopes that as free people

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