Juneteenth’s Enduring Impact: Black Americans’ Economic Progress Since 1865

The end of slavery is an important part of the American story. It illustrates how the promise of liberty and opportunity for prosperity enshrined in our Founding documents has gradually been expanded to every person on our soil. Juneteenth offers us a moment to reflect on that story.

On June 19th, 1865, over 2,000 Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, the westernmost area of Confederate control, to liberate the 250,000 men, women, and children still held as slaves after the 13th Amendment abolished slavery.

President Abraham Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, but for two and a half years, slave owners withheld this news of freedom, unwilling to accept that Black people were no longer their property but their fellow Americans.

The end of the brutal institution of slavery was a bright start for Black people. It marked the dawning of a new day of hope, promise, and opportunity. However, the path toward full economic liberation that spanned slavery’s ending until now has been long-fought with much success but also many stumbling blocks along the way.

Racist legal systems of Jim Crow and segregation gave way to ill-conceived government dependency programs, scattered with episodes of white vigilantism and violence at the hands of the Ku Klux Klan. Yet, the resilience of the Black community is grounded in its strong faith in God, family bonds, community ties, and an ethos of self-reliance and property ownership.

These values have served Black people well—both those whose roots trace back to slavery and legal immigrants like my family and me—against the challenges that lay ahead.

Juneteenth’s liberation brought newly freed Americans great opportunity amid great uncertainty. Still, Black people welcomed a future that was their own to craft. Ninety-year-old Margarett Nillin of Fort Worth, Texas in 1937 explained it this way: “What I like best, to be a slave or free? Well, this is the way. In slavery I owned nothing and never owned anything. In freedom I’m own the home and raise the family. All that causes me worryment, and in slavery I had no worryment, but I take the freedom.”

While Nillin and most slaves had no land, money, or wealth to start out life with, they possessed skills and knowledge gained from trades and farming and an unbeatable work ethic. Nillin and her mother worked as seamstresses, earning an “alright” living enough to marry and have children. Freedom brought not only her economic independence but also the opportunity to build human capital through education and expand her horizons by traveling—experiences denied to her as a slave.

So often, the story of Black people in America amplifies the hardship and brutality born of racism but ignores or minimizes the tremendous progress made economically and socially. Economic growth in the U.S. economy, education and skills development, and homeownership have powered Black communities forward throughout the post-slavery era to today.

Today, the Black middle and upper classes are thriving. Some 55% of Black households earn above $50,000 a year, with a quarter earning between $75,000 and $149,999, considered the financially stable middle class. One in seven Black households earns above $150,000 annually. Black households have about $352,000 in average wealth, a 53% increase since the end of the Great Recession (2007–2009). From the professional class to policymakers, from business leaders to athletes and entertainers, successful Black people are not outliers but more indicative of the Black experience than the stereotypes often portrayed in media or elevated by policymakers.

In the past quarter century, the Black population has grown 35%, and Black populations are growing fastest in states that historically have not had many Black residents, such as Utah, Arizona, and Minnesota. Post-slavery, the U.S. faced a massive problem of millions of illiterate adults and children.

Booker T. Washington partnered with Jewish business tycoon and philanthropist Julius Rosenwald to build over 5,300 schools across 15 southern states. In one of the greatest stories of private philanthropy and the can-do spirit of Americans, Washington, Rosenwald, and Black communities worked together to cut illiteracy among Black people in half, falling from 76% in 1880 to 33.3% by 1910. Alumni of Rosenwald schools include the poet Maya Angelou, late Democratic Representative John Lewis of Georgia, and Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson. Today, Black adults are pursuing degrees at higher rates over the past two decades.

Problems persist: wealth and income gaps, lagging home ownership rates, and education and health disparities. Worse, Black marriage rates fell from parity with whites post-slavery to being among the lowest of all demographics. Two out of three Black children are raised in single-parent households, which tends to have negative effects in terms of behavioral, educational, and workforce outcomes.

What worked in the past should be leaned on today. Stop waiting for Uncle Sam to save Black people with magical legislation to end racism. Rebuild the Black family, focus on home ownership, invest in human capital by building the soft and hard skills, and rely on faith in God, not government. That’s how we have made so much progress to date, and can continue to do so in the future.

Patrice Onwuka is vice president for economic policy at Independent Women. Patrice Onwuka is director of the Center for Economic Opportunity at Independent Women and co-host of WMAL-DC’s O’Connor & Co.