ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the economic impact of the race-based society on African Americans. During the race-based society, with the exception of slavery, blacks were never tightly coupled to the economy. After Emancipation, they were still entangled via sharecropping and convict labor to the agrarian economy. With the transition to industrial or manufacturing economy in the mid-19th century, blacks were never accorded the startup capital to start businesses that many new white immigrants received. The majority of blacks were wage earners. As chapter 1 suggested, blacks attempted to link themselves to capitalism only to be marginalized by the government and white entrepreneurs. Although they lacked bank-backed capital, blacks started businesses within the segregated community.
