Speech #930011874

For historically Black. Brown and Red Americans are the only Americans who have never benefitted from preferential economic treatment by the federal government. Enslaved Blacks. embattled Indians and economically enshackled Chicanos were in poor position to capitalize on the Preemption and Homestead Acts. so that the vast majority of the 1.6 million families who acquired western homesteads were white Americans. many of them recent immigrants. Having been excluded as landholders. minority Americans were in poor position to benefit from the expansion of agricultural credit in the first third of this century. Even less were they in position to take advantage of what DuBois has described as "the widespread custom" during the Industrial Revolution of "public investment for private profit." When federal. state and local governments paid threefifths of the cost of the railroads and handed them over to individuals and corporations. no Black man profited or gained a piece of ownership.