The Black Wall Street App: A Road to Financial Inclusion

Consensus 2021 is always a fount of new ideas and initiatives, and the Black Wall Street App is one of them. As Jordan Muthra writes at Coindesk, it aims “to increase access to financial education in Black and other communities of color.”

The project from Hill Harper and his team states on its home page, “You can’t be free if the cost of being you is too high.” Not only is this the world’s First Black-Owned Digital Wallet, it has also been built and designed by the Community, with the Community and for the Community.

Last week, Harper told CoinDesk’s Consensus 2021 event, ““When you really, actually peel back the onion, 90% to 95% of the financial products and services that have historically been offered to Black, brown and marginalized communities have been either predatory on their face or hidden predatory.” Perhaps this is an aspect of finance you haven’t considered, or to say it as Black Wall Street app does – Black Cash Matters™.

Muthra points out, “We are entering a phase of increased collective consciousness but not without a wide wealth gap, institutional racism and proud racists surfacing.” What is more, as he says, we have become jaded “by the widespread evidence of prejudice due to the proliferation of social media,” and this has a tendency to stop us thinking about the many facets of prejudice and how they are intertwined.

It is systemic prejudice that is behind Muthra writing the following, “As a community, Black folks have always strived to own and operate both infrastructure and the means of production but have been continually held back by structural inequality and attacks from extremists and the government alike.” If it didn’t exist, this would not be a necessity. Nor would the existence of the Black Wall Street app be necessary, but it is.

I’ll leave you with this thought: Black Americans hold only 1% of US wealth, and are systematically refused access to the financial system. With this app, people can learn about financial wellbeing and investing, invest in cryptocurrency, start building wealth and send/receive cash and crypto with community members. Being in charge of your finances and understanding the system, as well as making it work for you, is a necessary step on the road to freedom at a bearable cost.