'Sou-sou': Black immigrants bring savings club stateside

The Bahamas took a distinctly different course in relationship to the history of money-making than much of the region. African Americans who fought for the British in the Revolutionary War settled there to be free. Many of them came from the Low Country. In 1818, Great Britain declared that all enslaved Africans who set foot in the Bahamas would be

Being so close, yet outside the purview of American law, has been a source of Bahamian prosperity in one way or another for generations, particularly for those seeking to protect profit from taxation. The Bahamas are well-known as a tax shelter. The bulk of banking on the islands is offshore, meaning that the accounts are held by noncitizens and no

the culture of the people on the Sea Islands. With majority-Black populations, and after generations of absentee landlords during slavery, their language and folkways are more distinct here than anywhere else in Black American life. They are called Gullah Geechee people, a portmanteau of two traditional names for the language and the culture. Even

and the development of communal societies. The mutual-aid movement involved a large proportion of the Black community and continued for centuries. I chronicle the myriad Black mutual-aid societies that sprang up during and after enslavement and examine their accomplishments, effectiveness, and the special role of African American women in founding

The Oxford Book of Money, published in 1995, used ‘Money Rant’ because they said my poem explained the culture of money really well and made that explanation accessible.

La banque – les effets de commerce et tout ce qui s’ensuit – a été inventée par la grande famille des Médicis à Florence au treizième siècle. Toutefois, ces derniers espéraient combiner l’usure avec la sainteté, peut-être parce qu’ils étaient les banquiers du pape. Côme de Médicis faisait de longues promenades en compagnie d’un prêtre pour discuter

have is that interest plays with the concept of usury. Usury is not a new concept – even for the Western World. Usury was banned even in Elizabethan times in England. For example, a little-known fact is that William Shakespeare’s father was in court twice for violating the usury laws. Essentially, usury involves the charging of excessive rates of i