Welcome to the Be the Bridge podcast. Be The Bridge exists to empower people and culture toward racial healing, equity, and reconciliation.

Latasha Morrison founded Be The Bridge in 2016 to foster needed dialogue and brave spaces and to give people the tools to pursue racial justice.

We provide resources and community to do just that.

And this podcast is one of those resources.

You'll hear interviews hosted by Latasha and our team, conversations about current events,

and encouragement for your racial literacy journey.

Thank you for listening, subscribing, and engaging in this important work.

Hello, I'm Corrigan Brown with Be the Bridge.

And today, I want to talk about the role of the public sector in the building of the

black middle class and black wealth in the

United States of America. Why is the public sector something I would want to single out

when I'm thinking about this? Why wouldn't I look at the massive private sector? One thing to

note about the public sector is because it is under public scrutiny, wages are

fixed for specific roles. A postmaster in one office is going to make the same as a postmaster

in another office. That public scrutiny and that public visibility means that black people who are employed by the public sector

are not going to suffer from some of the wage disparities that we have seen in the private sector.

So let's take a brief walk through American history and see the ways that black citizens have

interacted with the public sector. Of course, black Americans have

been here since colonial times. And in early American history, there are two primary areas

in the public sector where we saw them serving. The first is the military, both enslaved people

who were given promises of freedom for service and free people were serving in the military, both enslaved people who were given promises of freedom for service and free

people were serving in the military. In addition, the postal service had a lot of opportunities

...