@a_d_o_n2020: The AI boom is being underwritten by Wall Street. But who underwrote Wall Street? This week's headlines point to a future being built at speed. Bloomberg reports that Anthropic has tapped JPMorgan Chase to lead the US retail portion of a potentially record-setting IPO. The Wall Street Journal reports that JPMorgan's Park Avenue headquarters cost an estimated $6 billion. Big Tech and Big Finance are the engine of the modern economy. But we rarely audit how that engine was first capitalized. In 2005, JPMorgan Chase apologized for the role of two predecessor banks, Citizens' Bank and Canal Bank in Louisiana, in slavery. Between 1831 and 1865, those banks accepted roughly 13,000 enslaved people as collateral on loans to plantation owners, and ended up owning about 1,250 of them. "Human capital" has a literal origin in American finance. Enslaved people were collateral, balance-sheet assets, and the basis of credit. The wealth extracted from their uncompensated labor and their bodies helped capitalize banks that survived, merged, and evolved into the institutions that now sit at the center of global finance, including those financing the AI revolution. The contrast is hard to ignore: • A roughly $6 billion headquarters. • A $5 million scholarship program for Black students in Louisiana, created as part of the 2005 apology. The scholarships were a meaningful gesture. But they are a small fraction of the value that enslaved labor generated for the financial system. And as AI generates billions in market value and IPO wealth, the descendants of the people whose forced labor helped build that system hold a tiny share of that upside. The question isn't only who leads the next IPO. It's who paid for the infrastructure that makes it possible, and what is still owed. How do we reconcile the legacy of historical asset-stripping with today's wealth creation? I'd like to hear your thoughts in the comments. Research conducted on behalf of the Black Legacy Civic Knowledge Alliance (BLCKA), a civic league educating communities about government and policy.

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Wednesday 28 October 2026 16:45:38 GMT