The collapse of Freedman’s Bank / Remembering Abdullah Ibrahim

Sometimes about really big things, but most times, the little mysteries are the best.

“Our lost and found is currently filled with pants. I don't know what I've never seen this happen.”

This is true. Mysteries have every size each week, this American life, wherever you get your podcasts. This is fresh air, I'm David B. and Kooley. Today is June 10th, named for the day in 1865, 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 2024 interview with Justine Hill Edwards, about the story of a bank established in 1865 for formerly enslaved people. Here's Tanya. In July of 1874, waves of black Americans rushed 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 cashiers 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, they too could create a piece of the American dream for themselves. Abolishness, Frederick Douglass, even encouraged black Americans to trust the banking system, but even his leadership as the president before its collapse could not save it.

Hill Edwards' book documents how the banks' white trustees drove the bank to the ground by lending out millions and 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," justine Hill Edwards, welcome to fresh air. Thank you so much for having me, Tanya.

The freedmen's bank, let's get into how it was established.

“So white abolitionists established it in 1865, take us back to that time period, who were these abolitionists and why was a bank for newly freed black people of priority?”

So the freedmen's bank was established by, well, it was really the brainchild of a white abolitionist minister named John Alvord. He was from Connecticut, and he lived in New Jersey during the Civil War. In 1864, 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 Sea 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. 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 1865 with a group of about 50 white prominent abolitionists, philanthropists, bankers and politicians, and they came up with the idea for the freedmen savings and trust company.

John Albert, he actually wrote letters, talking 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 that while black people had little experience with investments in the like, they did know about money, they earned it and they saved it through 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, savings accounts, most Americans didn't in the 19th 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 worked for money if possible.

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 freedmen's savings interest company, what we call the freedmen's bank was established as a simple savings bank. The bank was supposed to operate with the least amount of risk as possible.

The bank administrators were supposed to invest depositors money in government, back securities and bonds, which we're seeing to be the lowest risk possible financial product.

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 at this time it was between four and six percent.

“And so it was seen to be very low risk, very low cost, and the best way to help African Americans in their transition to freedom.”

What was the average sum that people were depositing at the opening?

Well, amounts of money, a few dollars. So we're not talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars. We're talking about thousands of African Americans depositing money. And I think it is worth saying too, that one of the kind of seed funds for the freedmen's bank came from the military savings banks established in 1864 for black soldiers.

“So even though most of the first depositors were depositing small amounts of money, a few of the bank branches, especially the ones in Norfolk, which was the first branch.”

So in North Carolina in New Orleans, kind of got their seed funding from the military banks established for black soldiers in 1864, which is, you can't really tell this story without talking about the spectra 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, a black freedom, which also included earning, 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 black Americans as not being slaves, but being free, as having the autonomy to 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.

So this resulted in an often violent struggle between white Americans who had not fully accepted that slavery was over, and black Americans who were excited to exercise their new found autonomy and freedom. You tell the story of a Houston branch of the bank from 1866, someone 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 from white perpetrators.

“It's always remarkable when we see documentation like this because 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 that's called the records of murders and outrageous, and when we talk about the violence of reconstruction, you can go to these records and read about the sheer scale and the sheer severity of violence against African Americans.

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. 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 1865, and opened its first branch in April of 1865, all of the bank's trustees in the first cash share were white.

There were a who's who of malicious 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 banks board of trustees. Right, now let's get into the mismanagement and ultimate demise of the bank. Take us to March of 1870.

Friedman's total deposits at the time, according to your book, equaled out to about $12 million.

That's about $292 million in today's money.

“How 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 then millions of dollars into their bank accounts. But in 1867, John Alvord, who at that time was working with the bank as one of the administrators, he had convinced other trustees that it would be a great idea to move the 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 a 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 in company 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, the committee who decided what to do with the bank's deposits in terms of investments. He brought with him two of its colleagues who worked at the Washington D.C. branch of Jay Cook in company first national bank. And these three men decided to kind of shift the bank's investment strategy. And so in 1869, Cook embarks on a lobbying campaign to members of Congress, many of whom were his friends.

And he convinced them to support a bill and 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 make 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 in so in 1870. And we started to legally make loans and that would dramatically change the ways that the bank's investment portfolio would kind of shake out.

Right, and a lot of it, a lot of the loans went to real estate ventures, 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 DC, to buy land, to buy property, and to make those types of real estate investments.”

And a minuscule volume of loans went to African Americans, and this dramatically reshaped, again, the bank's fundamental mission.

What made getting a loan from freed men's bank and ticing to these white guys, because I would assume that they could get loans from other banks too, right, was at 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 Trustees.

And so the loans had variable interest rates oftentimes very lower and 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 kind of foundations of these loans, the credit worthiness 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 who were putting their money in the bank.

“But how did people find out that their bank branch was going under?”

Well, I think this is where the famed Frederick Douglass comes in. He is asked in 1874 after John Alvord steps down at the beginning of that year. He's asked in March to become the bank's president and he has a bit of trepidation, but he also understands the importance of the institution he and his family and his sons were depositors.

And so once he gets into the role of the presidency, he accepts and in April of 1874, 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 over leverage their millions of dollars unpaid in loans that the loan terms had been extended, that interest was not being collected, that black depositors were not having access to their money, which was a problem for him. News reports are starting to come out that the bank is der water that they cannot fulfill their obligations to depositors. And so while Frederick Douglass is figuring this out, depositors are starting to realize that, hey, I can't go to my bank branch and withdraw my money.

I have the weight 60 or 90 days to withdraw the few dollars that I have in my account. And so this terrifies not only Douglass, but the tens of thousands of bank deposits across the country. And as he writes in his autobiography that he publishes in 1881, it was one of the worst decisions of his life.

“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 freedmen savings and trust it is fallen.

I was ignorant of its real condition till elected as its president.

Justine Hill Edwards speaking to Tanya Mosley in 2024. 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 91. We'll listen to an archive interview with him as well. I'm David B. and Coolie, and this is Fresh Air. This week, on here and now any time, President Trump appears to be ending his war with Iran. But the global economy might not recover right away. What the potential peace steel means for you. Also, some Democrats fear Trump's new acting director of national intelligence will try to interfere in this year's election.

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What did he do to try to save the bank, though? Because 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 about going president and the bank's actuary, George Stickney.

And he is basically shown the books and looks in horror at the state of the bank's finances. And Alvord jumps on him and says, "well, there is a run on one of our branches. And so we need you to deposit $10,000 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 Douglass. He's sitting there with the trustees at that time. There are two other black trustees.

And he is looking around, I 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. And I just think about that and it's kind of mind-blowing. To 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 that their money is still safe and essentially not to pull their money out from the bank." And he ends up depositing $10,000 of his own money in the bank as a show of his confidence. This went before Congress, I should say, and you got a hold of some of the testimony. Douglass really showed a lot of anger towards John Alvord, who was responsible for actually founding the bank. Unfortunately, no one was brought on charges and the bank's depositors when the bank failed were left to deal with federal authorities.

Hopefully, they hoped get their money that they still had in the bank when it failed in July of 1874.

“Did they ever get money back from those that they loaned to?”

Well, there were five disbursements. The first disbursement was about 10%, and then it went up to like 10%, 10%, 15%, and then 5%.

And so, there was a very complicated process, though, for the 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 1900, black-dupped depositors had claimed about 48, 49% 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 charted just how much wealth many of these people might have had if they had lost their money?

And the math on this is not exact, but if we think about how that money could have a crude, how interest could have a crude on that, we are talking about billions of 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 plunder of the Friedman's Bank. We're talking about discriminatory housing practices, lack of access to credit being credit invisible.

Not trusting financial institutions and so taking yourself out of the traditional financial marketplace and research 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.

Christine Hill Edwards, thank you so much for this book and this conversation and your research. Thank you so much. This was wonderful.

In Hill Edwards talking with Tanya Mosley in 2024 about her book Savings and Trust, the Rise and Betrayal of the Friedman'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 91. This is fresh air. This week on Consider This, the global race to dominate AI has made a handful of people incredibly rich. Senator Bernie Sanders wants to spread that money around. AI is based on human knowledge and human labor. They deserve the benefits of that.

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We're about the personal and transformative moments that make fans want to stand up and share each week on sports in America with David Green. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. South Africa born pianist composer and band leader Abdullah Ibrahim died Monday at age 91. He began recording in South Africa in the 1950s when he played with a pioneering band called the Jazzy Pissils alongside trumpeter Hugh Messicala. Abdullah Ibrahim left South Africa in 1962 and spent most of his life away, though he did play at President Nelson Mandela's inauguration in 1994.

Abdullah Ibrahim in his travels recorded dozens of albums for dozens of labels around the world. Jazzy story in Kevin Whitehead has this appreciation. [Music] Cherry by Abdullah Ibrahim, who wrote many hypnotic piano pieces that roll on and on.

Abdullah Ibrahim was born in Cape Town in 1934 as a Dolphus 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 Town 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 1963 and recognized a kindred spirit. Luckily, a few days later, Duke was producing some rewarding sessions of Paris and made room for Abdullah's South African trio. This is Dollars Dance. [Music]

“His mature piano style is not quite there yet. He's still digesting influences like Duke and Monk with their own percussive keyboard attacks.”

The resulting album Banner 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, Tintayana with a persistent tumbling bass figure. [Music] The 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 Buggie Wuggie". [Music] [Music] By the late 1970s, Abdullah 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 chats from back home alongside a fellow refugee, basis Johnny Deoni.

In that duo Ibrahim also played a bit of flute echoing those childhood tin whistle tunes. [Music] By 1980, now based in New York, Abdullah Ibrahim put together some larger ensembles that eventually led to his working septet Akaya. Like Elington, Ibrahim wasn't just a dynamic pianist to wrote steam-roller tunes, he composed beautiful ballots, none more so than the wedding. The song you could play in church.

saxophonist Carlos Ward takes the lead, but don't miss the horn's murmuring in the background. [Music] [Music] [Music] The wedding from Abdullah Ibrahim's 1985 album "Water From an Ancient Well".

In later decades he toured widely and kept making solo and small combo albums.

He slowed down some in his 80s when he became an NEA jazz master, but he could still keep a band on its toes. [Music] [Music]

“Jabruba recorded by a late version of his band Akaya in 2018.”

In the end the pianist divided his time among the US, South Africa and Germany, where he passed away on June 15th at 91.

The Billy Ibrahim was a citizen of the world who always remembered where he came from.

[Music] Jazz historian Kevin Whitehead, that's man and bird revisited. Coming up, we listen back to our 1989 interview with Abdullah Ibrahim. This is fresh air. This week on the MPR politics podcast, new polling shows President Trump is more unpopular than ever.

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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 II, who sold their latest jazz recordings to him. Ibrahim 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 91. His song, "Man and Burke" became the theme of the 1976 Soweto Uprising,

and his composition Mandela was written for Nelson Mandela. A part-time drove Ibrahim out of South Africa in 1962, and he lived in exile for many years in the US and Europe. Terry Gross spoke with Abdullah Ibrahim in 1989. His parents wanted him to become a doctor, but blacks were refused entry in the medical school,

another of the limits placed on his life under a part-time. In terms of the music, it was probably for me the only means of escape, 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 draw or a breaking point? They have vivid images and memories of confrontation with apartheid, and being subjected to each brutality. So one has decision to make either either you stay there and tow the line, or you leave and try to carry on or play the music or you stop.

After your left South Africa, you returned again in the mid-70s and recorded some sessions there.

And one of the pieces that has recently been re-assured is your peace-captown fringe. And I know that this is very popular in South Africa at the time of the so-called uprising.

“Can you tell me about writing and recording this piece?”

Yes. It was at the deep contemplation being 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 Hajj, going to Makkah for programing. And I needed to do it from home.

And it was at that time that I got together with this group of young musicians. And we recorded, we recorded a lot of music. The song "Captown Fringe" was recorded in Cape Town. The original title is called "Maninburg." "Maninburg" is a township on the outskirts of Cape Town.

The counterpart of Soweto, perhaps. When the album was released in this country,

“marketing people decided to call it "Captown Fringe," which I think was agreeable,”

because the township or just the word "Maninburg" was completely, I think, foreign to people here.

Like always, as always, in any struggle, and especially in southern Africa,

the music is played a very important role. 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, once taken and left it,

but we all felt so related, because we felt that we had captured the mood of the people at that time. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]

On the original recording of "Maninburg," recorded in the mid-70s, 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?”

Very good. But the reason for doing 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 was a 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 out of the room? Who would want to? It's like the only people who went to the night. There's no way.

We do not just mean jazz musicians, but contemporary 20th century music, any way, and any way that it is played. How can you escape out of the room? [Music]

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? You give them music, I mean you write it down for them,

“do you sing it to them, play it for them, what do you do?”

Well, musicians have a saying when we say we go into a happy rehearsal and they say, "Where's the paper?"

Because I asked them to not take the basic skeleton of the piece first.

So what I would do is when there is a new piece, the piano is like a command post. And I just come into the studio and start playing, even while they are busy setting up and talking about fried chicken, they had a where they visited the night before. And whoever years it 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 when do you mean it's built around them, like the look at the first solo or? No, not the first solo, but perhaps the lead. Oh I see. What a really nice interaction. I guess also it makes something of an incentive to make sure people pick up on it really quickly, because then they'll be more prominent. Yeah, because the idea is really not to write notes and give it to people to play.

“It's the other way around and that's why the so-called jazz music is so precious.”

It is so precious, it's perhaps the last bastion of human creativity. I'll do the Ibrahim I thank you so much for speaking with us. You're welcome. Thank you very much. Abdullah Ibrahim, speaking with Terry Gross in 1989. The South African pianist and composer died Monday at age 91.

On Monday's 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 air executive producer is Sam Bricker. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering support by Joyce Lieberman, Julian Herzfeld, and Diana Martinez, for Terry Gross and Tanya Mosley. I'm David B. Cooper.

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