Reflections on Exile and Apartheid

This is Fresh air. I'm David B. Cooley Today is juneteenth, 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 Tona Moseley'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 Tanyya In July of eighteen seventy four waves of Back Americans rushed to their local bank branches to find out if the news they were hearing was true The Friedman 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 cashiers who had to break the news. Most of their savings were gone The rise and fall of the Friedman Svings 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 Freedman's Bank With high hopes that as free people, they too could create a piece of the American dream for themselves abolitionist Frederick Douglas even encouraged black Americans to trust the banking system. Even his leadership as the president before its collapse, could not save it Hill Edwards' book documents how the bank's white trustees drove the bank to the ground by lending out millions in loans to white financiers and businessmen Justine Hill Edwards is a historian and associate professor of history at the University of Virginia Her research explores the intersection of African American history, the history of slavery, and the history of American capitalism Her book is called Savings and Trust I'm Justine Hill Edwards. Wlcome to fresh Air Thank you so much for having me, Tanya Friedman's Bank Let's get into how it was established. So White abolitionists established it in eighteen sixty five Take us back to that time period. Wh were these abolitionists and why was a bank for newly freed black people a priority. So the Friedman's Bank was established by, well, it was really the brainchild of a wide abolitionist minister named John Alvord. He was from Connecticut. And he lived in New Jersey during the Civil War And in eighteen sixty four, he was traveling with the Union Army in the South. Especially in the summer and fall of that year, following Union General William Sherman on his famed march to the seea from Atlanta to Savannah And he took the opportunity to talk to recently freed African Americans and What he found, what he gleaned from his conversations with them is that They wanted a few things during this new and ripe period of freedom. they wanted their families because a lot of them had been torn away from their families during slavery But they also wanted the opportunity to live independently, and importantly, they wanted the opportunity to buy land And so he figured that he could really contribute to their experience, he could help them in this again, new period of freedom by establishing a bank for them. And so he gathers In New York in January of eighteen sixty five with a group of about fifty white prominent abolitionists, philanthropists, bankers and politicians and they came up with the idea for the Friedman Savings and Trust Company John Albert. actually wrote letters. talalking about his fears around the future of freed people. in the nation But one of the things that you say is that he didn't understand while bllack people had little experience with investments and the like, they did know about money. They earned it and they saved it Th their experiences as enslaved people In what ways Did they know that Absolutely, I think even though Most enslaved people didn't have access to banking accounts, for example, or savings accounts. Most Americans didn't in the nineteenth century. The enslaved understood what money meant, they understood the value of their bodies because capital was held in their bodies, right? They were legally property. They understood what their work could garner, what they could be paid, they often for money if possible They it was not uncommon for the enslaved to bargain with poor whites, with other enslaved people, even with their enslavers. and so This idea that the enslaved and the newly free kind of entered the period of freedom without knowledge of money or savings or thrift as they called it was not true and really incompatible with the ideas that the white founders of the Freedman's Bank held at this time What standards were created at the start to ensure people's money was secure? How were they telling them that they would be able to do that Well, this was one of the supposed benefits of creating a savings bank. and so The Friedman Savings and Trust Company, what we call the Friedman's Bank, was established as a simple savings bank The bank was supposed to operate with the least amount of risk as possible They bank administrators were supposed to invest depositors money in government backed securities and bonds, which again, werere seen to be the lowest risk possible financial products and Depositors, if they kept their money in for a specific period of time, about six months, then they would get a small amount of interest back on their money att this time. It was between four percent and six percent And so it was seen to be very low risk, very low cost in the best way to help African Americans in their transition to freedom What was the average sum that people were depositing at the opening Small amounts of money, a few dollars. So we're not talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars. We're talking about thousandousands of African Americans depositing money. And I think it is worth saying too that one of The kind of seed funds for the Friedman's Bank came from the military savings banks established in eighteen sixty four for Black soldiers And so even though most of the first positors were depositing small amounts of money a few of the bank branches, especially the ones in Norfolk, which was the first branch Buford, South Carolina in New Orleans kind of got their seed funding from The military banks established for Black soldiers in eighteen sixty four, which I can't really tell this story without talking about the spectr of white supremacy and violence at that time too, because black people were free, but what were some of the ways Some white Americans struggle to cope with this new landscape of black freedom which also included eararning, having money and saving money Yes, absolutely. The reality is that reconstruction, although a period filled with The ideas of freedom, the expansion of the franchise to black men, citizenship rights, the end of legal slavery There was also White pushback, White violence against African Americans was rampant, especially in states such as Louisiana and Mississippi And so The reality was that African Americans with money, African Americans exercising their own independence especially financially was a real threat, especially in the former Confederate South where The Civil War was fought over the future of slavery in the nation. and White Americans in the South had a hard time letting go of the idea of Back Americans as not being slaves, but being free as having the autonomy live and choose to work where they want, the ability for especially black women to decide not to work and to take care of their families. And so this resulted in a often violent struggle between white Americans who had not fully accepted that slavery was over and black Americans who were excited to exercise their newfound autonomy and freedom You tell the story of a Houston branch Bank from eighteen sixty six. someomeone documented all of the murders and brutal beatings that were happening And basically how freed people were afraid of retribution for any number of things perrators, it's always remarkable when we see documentation like this because you it was pre everything. We're just talking about things being written down. Where was this document Who was this person writing to? from the Friedman's Bank Sure, there is a great kind of digest of sources, it's called the records of murders and outrages. And when we talk about the violence of Reonstruction, you can go to these records and read about The sheer scale and the sheer severity. of violence against African Americans. I think it's apt to call it white terrorism And so there is this Cpendium of records composed by Friedman's Bank and Friedman's Bureau officials And it details the fact that In some places like Houston, for example, one of the reasons why the Houston branch U was was closed within a year was that white Americans began to harass and vandalize the bank branch and white Americans began to harass the black depositors who were using the bank for perhaps economic uplift purposes. And so And so again, one of the reasons why I use the term economic violence here is because Economic violence is part and parcel with physical violence. and And again, I think it's important to underscore the fact that again, reconstruction was a period of extreme hope, politically, economically and legally But African Americans were under especially in the former Confederate South were under constant fears of white retaliation for their willingness to exercise their newfound rights So Justine, this was a bank for black people But the people in charge, like the trustees, were any of them black At first, no When the bank was established in March of eighteen sixty five and opened its first branch, In April of eighteen sixty five, all of the bank's trustees in the first cash year were white they were A who's who of mitionists and politicians and bankers and philanthropists mostly from New York And it didn't take long, but it did take a couple years. It took two years for The first black trustees to accept appointments to the bank's board of trrustees All right, now let's get into the mismanagement and ultimate demise of the bank Take us to March of eighteen seventy Friedman's total deposits at the time, according to your book, equaled out to about twelve million dollars. That's about two hundred ninety two million dollars in today's money Did the idea come about to loan out the money to white businessmen and investors Well, the bank was incredibly successful in its first few years. African Americans were depositing hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars into their bank accounts But in in eighteen sixty seven John Al Vord, who at that time was was working with the bank as one of the administrators, he had convinced other trustees that it would be a great idea to move Bank's main office from New York City to Washington, D.C And at the same time, while he was encouraging the trustees to embrace this idea he invited group of bankers onto the board that would dramatically shape its history led by banker Henry Cook, the brother of Jay Cook, who founded Jay Cook and comppany, the nation's first investment bank. He was invited onto the board and accepted a board appointment and more He accepted the chairmanship of the bank's financial committee a committee who decided what to do with the bank's deposits in terms of investments. He brought with him two of his colleagues who worked the Washington DC brranch of Jay Cooking Company First National Bank. And these three men decided to kind of shift the bank's investment strategy. and so in eighteen sixty nine embarks on a lobbying campaign to members of Congress, many of whom were his friends. And he convinced them to support a bill, an amendment to change the bank's charter to allow the bank to transition from being just a simple savings bank to essentially a commercial bank, which meant that the bank could then makeake loans and specifically make business loans. And so the Members of Congress who were kind of on the bank's side or on Cook's side decided to approve the amendment and so in eighteen seventy The bank started to legally make loans and that would dramatically changed the ways that the bank's investment portfolio kind of shake out, but it also shifted the bank's major foundational goal, which was to support the economic aspirations of newly freed African Americans Right and a lot of it. a lot of the loans to real estate adventures, which is ironic because owning land and property was a major goal. For many of the formerly enslaved and many people who had invested their money in this bank Absolutely. The bank started to make hundreds of thousands and then millions of dollars in loans. to Businessmen even to politicians in and around D DC to buy land to buy property and to make those types of real estate investments. and u a minuscule volume of loans went to African Americans and this this dramatically reshaped, again, the bank's fundamental mission made getting alone Friedman's Bank, enticing. to these guys because I would assume that they could get loans from other banks , right? Was it the ease of them being able to get the money? the percentage on like the interest, what was it Yes, exactly. it was the ease with which they could get loans the fact that the majority of the loans went to colleagues and business partners of members of the board of trrustees And so The loans had variable interest rates, oftentimes very lower or no interest would accrue on the bank loans The borrower could write a letter or physically ask a member of the board of trustees, if they could have an extension and those extensions would be granted, the amendment approved by Congress required that borrowers have collateral worth at least two times the loan amount and oftentimes those who borrowed money wouldn't have to give collateral. and so The the kind of foundations of these these loans, the credit worthiness of the of those who wanted to borrow money was not fully evaluated or vetted by members of the finance committee. And so millions of dollars were just flooding out of the bank to these businessmen at the expense of the formerly enslaved were putting their money in the bank peopleople find out their bank branch was going under. Well, I think this is where the famed Frederick Douglas comes in. He is U he's asked in eighteen seventy four. A John Alvord steps down the beginning of that year. He's asked in March to become the bank's president And he is He has a bit of trepidation, but he also understands the importance of the institution. He And his family, he in his sense were depositors. Um, and so once he gets into the role of the presidency, he accepts And in April of eighteen seventy four, he sits down for his first trustee meeting And he learns that the bank's finances were in horrible shape He learns that the bank is overleveraged, there are millions of dollars unpaid in loans. that the loan terms had been extended, that interest was not being collected that Positors were not having access to their money, which was a problem for him. And news reports are starting to come out that the bank is under water that they cannot fulfill their obligations to depositors. And so while Frederick Douglas is figuring this out, depositors are starting to realize that, hey, I can't go to my bank branch and withdraw my money to wait sixty or ninety days to withdraw the few dollars that I have in my in my account and so this terrifies not only Douglas, but the tens of thousands of depositors across the country And as he writes in his autobiography that he publishes in eighteen eighty one was one of the worst decisions of his life and I think that is saying a lot given what he had been through in his life fighting for his freedom as an enslaved young man Right, he actually writes Despite my efforts to uphold the Freedman's savings and trust, it has fallen. It has been the black man's cow the white man's milk Bad loans and bad management have been the death of it. I was ignorant of its real condition to elect it as its president Justine Hill Edwards, speaking to Tanya Moseley in twenty twenty four more of their conversation after a break And jazz historian Kevin Whitehead has an appreciation of South African jazz pianist and composer Abdullah Ibrahim, who died Monday at the age of ninety one We'll listen to an archive interview with him as well I'm David Ban Cooley, and this is Fresh air. What did he do to try to save the bank though? Really, even after finding out all of that information, initially, he wasn't telling people to, hey, pull out your money. and he did not even pull out his money initially, right No, when he gets to that first Board of Trustees meeting He is flanked by John Alvord, who was the outgoing president in the bank's actuary George Stickney And u And he is basically shown the books and kind of looks in horror the state of the bank's finances, and Alvord kind of jumps on him and says, well There is a run on one of our branches and so we need you to deposit ten thousand dollars of your own money in this bank account. And when I first read that, I was stunned. I was shocked because I'm thinking about Douglas' sitting there with the trustees at that time, there are two other black trustees Um, and He is looking around, you imagine at the white faces and saying of all of these men, none of whom have my background minus the African American trustees, but The white men in this room could all gather money. to loan and they're asking me the former slave to do it. I just think about that and it's kind of mind blowing. Did he feel overall that he had been used I think so. I think he comes to that point fairly quickly and essentially tries to write the ship And what he does is he writes to try to assure depositors that their money is still safe and essentially not to pull their money out from the bank. and he ends up depositing ten thousand dollars of his own money in the bank as a show of his confidence This went before Congress, I should say, and you got hold of some of the testimony Douglas really showed a lot of anger towards John Alred, who was responsible for actually founding bank Unfortunately, no one was brought on charges and the bank's depositors when the bank failed were left to deal with federal authorities to Hopefully, they hoped get their money that they still had in the bank when it failed in July of eighteen seventy four they ever get money back from those that they loan to Well, there were five disbursements The first disbursement was about ten percent and then it went up to like ten percent, ten percent, fifteen percent. and then five percent. And so There was a very complicated process though for depositors to get money, Congress appointed three commissioners to figure out how to liquidate the bank's assets and to figure out how to repay the depositors. They had a hard time selling off the bank's assets, the buildings that they had purchased for bank branches across the country, the commissioners themselves were getting paid. And so all of this kind of chipped away at the money that African Americans could claim so at the end by ' nineteen hundred Black depositors had claimed about forty eight per, forty nine percent of what they had in their accounts. and so nowhere near the full amount of money that they had when the bank collapsed Have you chred it? Just how much wealth many of these people might have had had if they hadn't lost their money It's in perhaps a trillion dollars. I mean, it's really hard to say When the bank failed there depositors had about two point nine million dollars in their accounts att its height though The bank had taken in about Um about fifty seven million dollars, and now that's about one point five billionars. And the math on this is not exact, but if we think about how that money could have could have accrued how interestnterest could have accrued on that. We are talking about billions, if not. trillions of dollars. in wealth that African Americans could have now, if not for the failure of the bank Are you making the case for reparations? That is a good question. I think so. I think there needs to be a reckoning I think one of the major aspects of not just this work, but longer, broader conversations about the continued influence of slavery is that African Americans have been stripped of wealth And that was strategic. It wasn't just with the failure and plleunder of the Frireedman's Bank. We're talking about Discriminatory housing practices, lack of access to credit being credit invisible U not trusting financial institutions and so taking yourself out of the traditional financial marketplace and reesearch shows that having and maintaining a relationship with a financial institution and trusting that your money will be safe with that financial institution is a vehicle to build wealth. And so if African Americans historically have both been left out of. and On the other side, don't trust these institutions we're talking about one of the origins and roots of the racial wealth gap in America Justine Hill Edwards, thank you so much for this book and this conversation and your research Thank you so much. this was wonderful. Justine Hill Edwards, talking with Tanya Moseley in twenty twenty four about her book, Savings and Trust, The Rise and Betrayal of the Freedman's Bank Coming up Jazz historian Kevin Whitehead has an appreciation of South African jazz pianist and composer Abdullah Ibrahim, who died Monday at the age of ninety one This is fresh air. South Africa born pianist, composer, and bandleader, Abdullah Ibrahim died Monday at age ninety one He began recording in South Africa in the nineteen fifties when he played with a pioneering band called The Jazz Epistles, alongside Trumpeter Hugh Messakeella Abdullah Ibrahim left South Africa in nineteen sixty two and spent most of his life away. though he did play at President Nelson Mandela's inauguration in nineteen ninety four Abdullah Ibrahim, in his travels, recorded dozens of albums for dozens of labels around the world. Jazz historian Kevin Whitehead as this appreciation Cherry by Abdulli Ibrahim, who wrote many hypnotic piano pieces that roll on and on. It's nameam for Don Cherry, a fellow jazz Gobe trotter Abdullah Ibberhim was born in Cape Town in nineteen thirty four as a doolphus brand. His early records were under the name Dollar Brand Grandpa and mom played piano in the family church Gospel music cadences and Tin whistle Cape toown street music melodies left permanent marks on Abdullah's composing But the land of apartheid was no place for black self expression In his late twenties, he moved to Switzerland where Duke Ellington heard his trio in nineteen sixty three and recognized a kindred spirit. Luckily, a few days later, Duke was producing some recording sessions at Paris and made room for Abdullah's South African trio. This is Dollarss Dance Mature piano style's not quite there yet. He's still digesting influences like Duke and Monk with their own percussive keyboard attacks The resulting album Bannard Duke Ellington Presents brought him international attention. But Abdullah's late sixties and early seventies solo records really made his reputation. Here's another catchy one, Tintaana, with a persistent tumbling base figure. A couple of minutes later, the left hand stubbornly sticks to that bass part while his right hand goes wherever, although the hands check in with each other periodically. There's a suggestion of all manner of African percussion ensembles with their layered contrasting rhythms. You might think of it as Africanized boogie woogie By the late nineteen seventies, Adullah Ibrahim was recording all over, from Toronto to Tokyo, in Europe and in New York where he lived off and on, and even in South Africa. He recorded some traditional chants from back home alongside a fellow refugee, bassist Johnny Diani. In that duo, Ibrahim also played a bit of flute, echoing those childhood tin whistle tunes By nineteen eighty, now based in New York, Abdulli Ibrahim put together some larger ensembles that eventually led to his working seepte Akaaya. Like Ellington, Ibrahim wasn't just a dynamic pianist who wrote steam rooller tunes, he composed beautiful ballets, none more so than the wedding, a song you could play in church Sxophonist Carlos Ward takes the lead Don't miss the horns murmururing in the background. wedding from Abdullah Ibrahim's nineteen eighty five album, Water From an Ancient Wale. In later decades, he toured widely and kept making solo and small combo albums. He'd do guest appearances with European radio orchestras and big bands and played lots of jazz festivals He slowed down some in his eighties when he became an NEA jazz master, but he could still keep a band on his toes No ed by a late version of his band Akaya in twenty eighteen. In the end, the pianist divided his time among the US, South Africa, and Germany where he passed away on june fifteenth at ninety one Abduli Ibrahim was a citizen of the world who always remembered where he came from. Jazz historian Kevin Whitehead. That's Manenberg Revisited Coming up, we listen back to our nineteen eighty nine interview with Abdullah Ibrahim. This is fresh air As a young man, Abdullah Ibrahim listened to jazz on a Voice of America broadcast in South Africa. Before he converted to Islam, he was known by the nickname Dollar. a name given to him by American soldiers stationed in Cape Town during World War two, who sold their latest jazz recordings to him. Abraham later recorded dozens of albums of his own for dozens of labels around the world Pianist and composer Abdullah Ibrahim died Monday at the age of ninety one His song Manenberg became the theme of the nineteen seventy six Souetto upprising And his composition Mandela was written for Nelson Mandela Apartheid drove Ibrahim out of South Africa in nineteen sixty two. and he lived in exile for many years in the US and Europe Terry Gross spoke with Abdullah Ibrahim in nineteen eighty nine His parents wanted him to become a doctor But blacks were refused entry into medical school anotherother of the limits placed on his life under apartheid In terms of the music, it was probably for me the only means of escaping because at least we could play in our own environment So I grew up in playing dance bands behind vocal groups playing variety concerts But the main halls or arena of activity on a social, economic and political from those aspects were completely denied to us What was it that finally made you decide to leave South Africa? Was there a last straw or a breaking point They have vivid images and memories of confrontation withith apartheid and being subjected to its brutality the So when one has decision to make either Either you stay there and tow the line Oh you leave and try carry on or or play Play the music orr you stop. We just we just stoped giving like happened to so many of our talented people. after you left South Africa, you returned again in the mid seventies and recorded some sessions there. And one of the pieces that has recently been reissued is your piece Cape Town Fringe And I know that this is very popular in South Africa at the time of the Swheto upprising. Can you tell me about writing and recording this piece Yes, u It was A the deep contemplation being out all those years that we decided to go back, but it was at the time when I took Shahada. when I became Muslim. and That was on the way to making Hj, going to Maka for pilgrimage And I needed to do it from home. And it was at that time that I got together this group of young musicians and we record we recorded a lot of music The song Cape Town Fringe was recorded in Cape Town Uh, the the the The original title is called Manenberg Marenberg is a township on the outskirts of Cape Town, the counterpart of Seto, perhaps. When the album was released in this country, the marketing people decided to call it Cape Town Finge. which I think was agreeable because the township or just the worood Manenburg was completely, I think, foreign to people, yeah I've always, as always In any struggle and especially in Southern Africa, the music has played a very important role. U We recorded this. We were in a studio in Cape Town and this piece of music came In the studio, we were busy recording some other pieces and We recorded it just once one take and left it but we all felt so elated because we felt that we had captured the mood of the people at the time on the original recording of of Manenberg recorded in the mid seventies, you're playing electric piano Which I don't think you play anymore. No. How does it sound to you listening back to it? The electric piano? Sounds good.. But the re the reason for doing that was because we needed to take the music out To the people. I mean, live And sometimes it was problematic to have an acoustic piano, let alone a grand piano So we utilized the electric piano. That wasn't really the only reason for you. That's interesting When you left South Africa, you met Duke Ellington, and he was very helpful for you. In fact, I think he was responsible for your first recording outside of South Africa. I think your music still sounds very influenced by Ellington. Do you feel that way? How can we escape Ellington? Who would want to Exactly, even if people want to deny it, there's no way and look we do not just mean jazz musicians, but contemporary twentieth century music. any way and any way that it is played, how can you escape Eington When you are holding a rehearsal with your musicians and you're teaching them or giving them a new piece of yours, how do they learn it? Do you give them music? mean Do you write it down for them? Do you sing it to them, play it for them? What do you do Well, the musicians have a saying when I you say We're going to have rehearsals and they say, whereere's the paper because I ask them to notate the basic the basic skeleton of the piece first. So what I would do is when there's a new piece the piano is like command post. And I just come into the studio and start playing even while they arere busy setting up and talking about Oh chicken head or where they whereere they visited the night before and, uh Whoever is at first will pick it up. And so the song is built around that person, the first one who picks it up and finds an interest. Oh really? So what do you mean it's built around them, like they'll get the first solo or No, not the first solo, but perhaps the lead. Oh, I see,u. Yeah What a really nice interaction? I guess also it makes it's kind of something of an incentive to make sure people pick up on it really quickly because then they'll be more prominent. Yeah becausecause the idea is really not to write notes and give it to people to play It's the other way,'s the other way around. And that's why the so called the so called jazz music is so precious It is so precious, it's perhaps the last bastion of human creativity. Abda Ibrahima, thank you so much for speaking with us. You're welcome. Thank you very much Abdullah Ibrahim, speaking with Terry Gross in nineteen eighty nine The South African pianist and composer died Monday at age ninety one On Monday' show, Laverne Cox For a decade, she's been one of the most visible trans women in America But she spent most of her life keeping herself hidden We talk about her new memoir, her childhood in Mobile, Alabama and the current political backlash against transgender people Hope you can join us Fresh Airs E execive producer is Sam Brigger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering support by Joyce Lieberman, Julian Hertzfeld, and Diana Martinez. For Terry Gross and Tona Mososeley, I'm David Bean Cool