Registration now closed

Author Talk: The Rise and Fall of The Freedman's Bank

Celebrating Juneteenth with Rodney A. Brooks

In honor of the Juneteenth Holiday Programming, Journalist and author Rodney A. Brooks discusses his new book: The Rise and Fall of The Freedman's Savings Bank.

Register to attend and learn more about The Rise and Fall of The Freedman’s Bank, And Its Lasting Socio-Economic Impact on Black America. This will be a 45 minute conversation followed by Q&A, and book signing. First fifty registrants of the event will receive a complimentary book courtesy of the DC Public Library Foundation. You can learn more about the book and author below.

For reasonable accommodations, please contact the Center for Accessibility at 202-727-2142 or DCPLaccess@dc.gov. For ASL or tactile interpretation, please allow at least seven (7) days notice.

About the Book

Read the story of the bank, created after the Civil War, that was supposed to help Black people newly freed from slavery build wealth and gain financial acumen. But those former slaves lost everything when the bank collapsed less than a decade later under the weight of corruption and deception by its all white, all male board, incompetence and an international financial crisis. “Not even ten additional years of slavery could have done so much to throttle the thrift of the freedmen as the mismanagement and bankruptcy of the series of savings banks chartered by the Nation for their especial aid,” wrote W.E.B. Du Bois in his classic book, “The Souls of Black Folk.”

About the Author

Rodney A. Brooks writes on retirement and wealth and health inequities. His retirement columns appear in U. News & World Report and AARP’s Senior Planet. He has also written retirement columns for The Washington Post and USA TODAY and is a contributor to National Geographic, Next Avenue, Forbes and The Washington Post. He is author of the new book, The Rise and Fall of the Freedman’s Bank and It’s Lasting Socio-Economic Impact on Black America. He is also author of the book, Fixing the Racial Wealth Gap: Racism and Discrimination Put Us Here, But This Is How We Can Save Future Generations. The book was a winner of the National Association of Black Journalists’ (NABJ) Outstanding Book Award in 2022 and also made the shortlist for the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing (SABEW) Third Annual Best in Business Book Awards. He was a winner of the SABEW Best in Business Awards for his story in Capital & Main on the widening racial wealth. He also was a finalist for 2021 Dateline Awards competition by the Washington D.C. Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and a finalist for National Association of Black Journalists Salute to Excellence Awards in 2018. A recipient of the President’s Award from the National Association of Black Journalists, he was elected to the NABJ Hall of Fame in 2021. He was named a Senior Fellow at Prosperity Now in 2022. He is co-author of Retirement Planning Essentials: A Guide to Living Well Without Running out of Money, published in 2018. He is also author of the E-Book Is One Million Dollars Enough: A Guide to Planning for and Living Through a Successful Retirement. He has testified before the U.S. Senate Special Committee Aging on challenges facing Black Americans, particularly women, in retirement. Brooks was Deputy Managing Editor/Money and retirement columnist for USA TODAY before he retired in 2015 after 30 years. Previously he was assistant business editor and reporter at the Philadelphia Inquirer. He has also worked as a reporter or editor for The Bulletin in Philadelphia, the Asheville (N.C.) Citizen-Times and the Ithaca (N.Y.) Journal. He serves on the Foolproof Foundation’s Walter Cronkite Committee, an organization dedicated to teaching financial literacy in public schools. He served two terms as treasurer and a member of the executive board of the NABJ. He currently serves as chairman for of the NABJ Finance Committee. Born in Baltimore, Maryland and raised in Newark and Linden, N.J., Brooks received a B.S. degree from Cornell University and an executive certificate in financial planning from Georgetown University.

In Conversation with

Vanessa Williams is a longtime journalist who recently retired from daily journalism after 27 years at The Washington Post. Williams covered local and national government and politics for The Post, focusing on voters and candidates of color. Williams mentored dozens of young journalists at The Post and other news organizations.  Before joining The Post, Williams spent 12 years as a reporter and writer at the Philadelphia Inquirer. While in the City of Brotherly Love, Williams served several years on the board of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists, including as president. Williams, who attended her first NABJ conference in 1983, while she was a reporter at her hometown newspaper, The St. Petersburg Times, now the Tampa Bay Times. She joined the board of NABJ in the late 1980s, serving as regional director, secretary and Vice President. In 1997, she was elected president. She lives in Washington, DC.

Upcoming events