Artificial intelligence (AI) is quickly becoming one of the most powerful forces in the global economy, with the potential to generate historic levels of wealth. As technology companies and governments position themselves to benefit from this growth, our communities must share in those gains in ways that are real, substantial and protected from political reversal.
At the same time, many communities are pushing back to ensure that new AI infrastructure does not strain local resources, increase costs or pollute their neighborhoods.
The latest promise being offered to the public is the creation of sovereign wealth funds or similar ownership models that would give people a stake in AI-generated wealth. Several proposals point in this direction:
• President Donald Trump has explored strategies for the U.S. government to take equity stakes in leading AI firms.
• Sen. Bernie Sanders has introduced legislation aimed at giving the public a share in this new economic value.
• OpenAI has proposed a voluntary “Public Wealth Fund” that would give American citizens a direct stake in the gains created by artificial intelligence.
The question is whether these proposals represent real economic inclusion — or another version of a familiar promise that never fully reaches Black America. Broken promises from government and business are not new to Black Americans, going back to the “40 acres and a mule” pledge after the Civil War.
The history of slavery, emancipation and Reconstruction shows a repeated pattern: Black labor created wealth, but Black people were denied equal compensation, legal protection and the resources needed to build generational wealth.
Near the end of the Civil War, Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton met with 20 Black leaders in Savannah, Georgia. Those leaders made clear that true freedom and self-determination required land ownership. Sherman’s Special Field Order No. 15 set aside 400,000 acres of confiscated Confederate land and granted enslaved families plots of up to 40 acres.
After Lincoln’s assassination, however, President Andrew Johnson reversed course, pardoned former Confederates and returned the land to its previous owners.
From 1619 to 1865, enslaved Africans and their descendants labored from sunup to sundown without wages, building wealth for enslavers and for the governments and institutions that supported the enslavement economy — and received no compensation for that labor.
During much of the Civil War, the Militia Act of 1862 allowed Black soldiers to be paid less than white soldiers. Black soldiers received $10 per month, with $3 deducted for clothing, leaving only $7 in take-home pay. White soldiers received $13 per month with no clothing deduction. Congress did not correct this inequity for two years.
Emancipation without economic justice and equality was the order of that period of American history. In April 1862 — months before President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation — Congress passed the District of Columbia Emancipation Act. The law freed roughly 3,000 Black people, but its benefits were unequal: Enslavers received compensation of up to $300 per enslaved person, while the people who had labored without pay received nothing unless they agreed to relocate outside the United States, where they would get $100.
The 13th Amendment, ratified in 1865, abolished slavery in the United States but preserved a loophole allowing involuntary servitude as punishment for a crime. Former slaveholding states exploited that exception through Black Codes, convict leasing and Jim Crow laws, using the criminal legal system to restrict Black freedom and preserve the economic control and wealth of former slaveholders.
These broken promises symbolize the federal government’s failure to provide foundational reparations and economic justice to Black Americans. They represent the systemic hurdles that descendants of enslaved people have navigated as they struggle to build generational wealth in the United States.
Today we are facing another threat to Black American economic progress. President Trump, Republicans and the Supreme Court are rolling back the gains made by our people over the last 162 years. Quality education is being dismantled. Racist gerrymandering disguised as equal opportunity is eliminating Black congressional districts. Civil rights protections are being stripped of their ability to protect Black people. A massive tax burden is being shifted from the rich to the poor.
Given this record, it is reasonable to question whether the federal government and its technology partners will truly protect Black interests in the next wave of AI-driven wealth.
Sen. Bernie Sanders is right to argue that artificial intelligence is built on the collective knowledge of humanity and the creative work of tens of millions of people. He also correctly warns that the public should have a say in how AI develops so that its benefits serve humanity, not only the wealthiest people on the planet.
However, his current legislative proposal falls short of providing true equality or meaningful economic opportunity for everyday Americans. Sanders estimates that the average payment would be $1,000 per person before taxes. Measured against the purchasing power offered in 1862 to Black Washingtonians who agreed to relocate — the only time in American history that Black residents of Washington, D.C., were offered reparations — that amount would equal only about $33. Meanwhile, the data, knowledge and creative work of ordinary people are helping create new billionaires and trillionaires.
This small payment does not address the deeper question: Who should own and benefit from the wealth AI generates? No more empty promises should be made to Black American communities. We will not accept another symbolic promise of “40 acres and a mule” from the federal government or the technology industry.
If AI is going to generate historic levels of wealth, then the benefits must be real, substantial and protected from political reversal. That means any new public-wealth proposal must include:
• Substantial investment in Black communities.
• Clear guarantees that promised benefits cannot be easily reversed by a future administration.
• Accountability from both government leaders and technology companies.As president of the 7 million-member National Black Convention, USA, I intend to help ensure that new, achievable and financially sustainable promises are not only made but kept.
