Fifteen Cents on the Dollar

A sweeping, deeply researched narrative history of Black wealth and the economic discrimination embedded in America’s financial system through public and private actions that created today’s Black-white wealth gap. 

The early 2020s will long be known as a period of racial reflection. In the wake of the police killing of George Floyd, Americans of all backgrounds joined together in historic demonstrations in the streets, discussions in the workplace, and conversations at home about the financial gaps that remain between white and Black Americans. This deeply investigated book follows the lives of seven Black Americans of different economic levels, ages and professions during the three years following this period of racial reckoning.  

Drawing on intimate interviews with these individuals—three of whom are well known and four of whom most readers will learn about for the first time in the book—the authors bring data, research and history to life. Fifteen Cents on the Dollar shows the scores of set-backs that have held the Black-white wealth gap in place—from enslavement to redlining to banking discrimination—and ultimately, the set-backs that occurred in the mid-2020s as the push for racial equity became a polarized political debate.

Fifteen Cents on the Dollar is a comprehensive, deeply human look at Black-white wealth-gap history, told through the lives Black Americans as well as through the development of a new bank intended to help close the Black-white wealth gap. Seasoned journalist-academics Louise Story and Ebony Reed provide crucial insights on American economic equity, Black business ownership, and political and business practices that leave Black Americans behind. In chronicling how these staggering injustices came to be, they show how and why so little progress on the wealth gap has been made and provide insights Americans should consider if they want lasting change.