
The Plunder of Black America
How the Racial Wealth Gap Was Made
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $17.19
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Lisa S. Ware
About this listen
Wealth is central to the American pursuit of happiness and is an overriding measure of well-being. Yet wealth is conspicuously absent from African American households. Why do some 3.5 million Black American families have zero or negative wealth?
Historian Calvin Schermerhorn traces four hundred years of Black dispossession and decapitalization—what Frederick Douglass called plunder—through the stories of families who have strived to earn and keep the fruits of their toils. Their struggles reveal that the ever-evolving strategies to strip Black income and wealth have been critical to sustaining a structure of racialized disadvantage. These accounts also tell of the quiet heroism of those who worked to overcome obstacles and defy the plunder.
From the story of Anthony and Mary Johnson, abducted from Angola and brought to Virginia in 1619, to the enslaved Black workers dispossessed by the Custis-Washington family, to Venture Smith (born Broteer Furro), who purchased his freedom, to three generations of a family enslaved in the South who moved north after Emancipation, to the Tulsa massacre and the subprime lending crisis, Schermerhorn shows that we cannot reckon with today's racial wealth inequality without understanding its unrelenting role in American history.
©2025 Calvin Schermerhorn (P)2025 Tantor MediaPeople who viewed this also viewed...
-
Existentialism - Philosophical and Literary Works
- Notes from Underground. Fear and Trembling. Ecce Homo. The Metamorphosis and Others
- By: Fyodor Dostoevsky, Soren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, and others
- Narrated by: Peter Coates, Mark Bowen, Shawna Wolf
- Length: 27 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Existentialism: Philosophical and Literary Works is a compelling anthology that delves into the realm of existentialist thought, exploring the profound philosophical and literary works that have shaped this influential movement. From the psychological depths of Fyodor Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground to the existential dilemmas of Søren Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling, and the introspective reflections of. Friedrich Nietzsche's Ecce Homo, this collection encompasses a wide range of existentialist voices.
By: Fyodor Dostoevsky, and others
-
Subjugate the Earth
- The Beginning and End of Human Domination of Nature
- By: Philipp Blom, Wieland Hoban - translator
- Narrated by: Keval Shah
- Length: 13 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Subjugate the Earth traces the biography of a strange idea: the idea that human beings can subdue nature and rule over it. Born in Mesopotamia at the dawn of civilization, the idea of subjugating the Earth was included in the Bible, reached Europe through Christianity, and spread through colonialism. The Enlightenment gave a scientific appearance to the ambition of controlling nature but did not change the ambition itself. Yet every birth presages a death.
By: Philipp Blom, and others
-
The Science of Racism
- Everything You Need to Know but Probably Don't—Yet
- By: Keon West
- Narrated by: Keon West
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this frank, funny, and meticulous book, a leading social scientist lays out the striking facts we know about racism, how we have uncovered them, and how we can start to fix them.
By: Keon West
-
Stuck
- How the Privileged and the Propertied Broke the Engine of American Opportunity
- By: Yoni Appelbaum
- Narrated by: Ari Fliakos
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this illuminating debut, Yoni Appelbaum, historian and journalist for The Atlantic, shows us that this idea has been under attack since reformers first developed zoning laws to ghettoize Chinese Americans in nineteenth-century Modesto, California. The century of legal segregation that ensued—from the zoning laws enacted to force Jewish workers back into New York’s Lower East Side to the private-sector discrimination and racist public policy that trapped Black families in Flint, Michigan to Jane Jacobs’ efforts to protect her vision of the West Village.
-
-
land of opportunity
- By Anonymous User on 03-16-25
By: Yoni Appelbaum
-
Plundered
- How Racist Policies Undermine Black Homeownership in America
- By: Bernadette Atuahene
- Narrated by: Amir Abdullah
- Length: 10 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Professor Bernadette Atuahene moved to Detroit, she planned to study the city’s squatting phenomenon. What she accidentally found was too urgent to ignore. Her neighbors, many of whom had owned their homes for decades, were losing them to property tax foreclosure, leaving once bustling Black neighborhoods blighted with vacant homes. Through years of dogged investigation and research, Atuahene uncovered a system of predatory governance, where public officials raise public dollars through laws and processes that produce or sustain racial inequity.
-
-
Remarkable study
- By Sudsbren on 03-30-25
-
Equality
- What It Means and Why It Matters
- By: Thomas Piketty, Michael J. Sandel
- Narrated by: Derek Dysart, Stephen Graybill
- Length: 2 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this compelling dialogue, two of the world’s most influential thinkers reflect on the value of equality and debate what citizens and governments should do to narrow the gaps that separate us. Ranging across economics, philosophy, history, and current affairs, Thomas Piketty and Michael Sandel consider how far we have come in achieving greater equality. At the same time, they confront head-on the extreme divides that remain in wealth, income, power, and status nationally and globally.
By: Thomas Piketty, and others
-
Existentialism - Philosophical and Literary Works
- Notes from Underground. Fear and Trembling. Ecce Homo. The Metamorphosis and Others
- By: Fyodor Dostoevsky, Soren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, and others
- Narrated by: Peter Coates, Mark Bowen, Shawna Wolf
- Length: 27 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Existentialism: Philosophical and Literary Works is a compelling anthology that delves into the realm of existentialist thought, exploring the profound philosophical and literary works that have shaped this influential movement. From the psychological depths of Fyodor Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground to the existential dilemmas of Søren Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling, and the introspective reflections of. Friedrich Nietzsche's Ecce Homo, this collection encompasses a wide range of existentialist voices.
By: Fyodor Dostoevsky, and others
-
Subjugate the Earth
- The Beginning and End of Human Domination of Nature
- By: Philipp Blom, Wieland Hoban - translator
- Narrated by: Keval Shah
- Length: 13 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Subjugate the Earth traces the biography of a strange idea: the idea that human beings can subdue nature and rule over it. Born in Mesopotamia at the dawn of civilization, the idea of subjugating the Earth was included in the Bible, reached Europe through Christianity, and spread through colonialism. The Enlightenment gave a scientific appearance to the ambition of controlling nature but did not change the ambition itself. Yet every birth presages a death.
By: Philipp Blom, and others
-
The Science of Racism
- Everything You Need to Know but Probably Don't—Yet
- By: Keon West
- Narrated by: Keon West
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this frank, funny, and meticulous book, a leading social scientist lays out the striking facts we know about racism, how we have uncovered them, and how we can start to fix them.
By: Keon West
-
Stuck
- How the Privileged and the Propertied Broke the Engine of American Opportunity
- By: Yoni Appelbaum
- Narrated by: Ari Fliakos
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this illuminating debut, Yoni Appelbaum, historian and journalist for The Atlantic, shows us that this idea has been under attack since reformers first developed zoning laws to ghettoize Chinese Americans in nineteenth-century Modesto, California. The century of legal segregation that ensued—from the zoning laws enacted to force Jewish workers back into New York’s Lower East Side to the private-sector discrimination and racist public policy that trapped Black families in Flint, Michigan to Jane Jacobs’ efforts to protect her vision of the West Village.
-
-
land of opportunity
- By Anonymous User on 03-16-25
By: Yoni Appelbaum
-
Plundered
- How Racist Policies Undermine Black Homeownership in America
- By: Bernadette Atuahene
- Narrated by: Amir Abdullah
- Length: 10 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Professor Bernadette Atuahene moved to Detroit, she planned to study the city’s squatting phenomenon. What she accidentally found was too urgent to ignore. Her neighbors, many of whom had owned their homes for decades, were losing them to property tax foreclosure, leaving once bustling Black neighborhoods blighted with vacant homes. Through years of dogged investigation and research, Atuahene uncovered a system of predatory governance, where public officials raise public dollars through laws and processes that produce or sustain racial inequity.
-
-
Remarkable study
- By Sudsbren on 03-30-25
-
Equality
- What It Means and Why It Matters
- By: Thomas Piketty, Michael J. Sandel
- Narrated by: Derek Dysart, Stephen Graybill
- Length: 2 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this compelling dialogue, two of the world’s most influential thinkers reflect on the value of equality and debate what citizens and governments should do to narrow the gaps that separate us. Ranging across economics, philosophy, history, and current affairs, Thomas Piketty and Michael Sandel consider how far we have come in achieving greater equality. At the same time, they confront head-on the extreme divides that remain in wealth, income, power, and status nationally and globally.
By: Thomas Piketty, and others