Amanda White Gibson

I am fascinated by how people navigate finance. I spent the first decade of my career at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond helping people understand the banking system and encouraging them to engage with the Fed. I turned to studying financial history because I wanted to learn how American capitalism evolved over time. I thought if I could more clearly describe the construction of today’s financial institutions and practices, I could contribute to conversations addressing current economic issues, like the racial wealth gap. I discovered the dogged racism that evolved in tandem with US financial systems. However, the archive is also full of evidence of the innovative and inspirational actions of Black Americans—leaders, but also everyday people—to bend and shape economic systems in pursuit of justice and to cast off white supremacy. In my scholarship and my teaching, my goal is the use the past to understand the present. I am working on a book on the creative credit practices of Black communities that were left out of the American banking system in the nineteenth century. In the classroom I help students use historical context to critically examine the world around them.