Government policies have the potential to enrich people’s lives materially as well as encourage their participation as citizens. They also have tremendous power to worsen people’s lives materially as well as discourage their participation as citizens. Freedmen was the term used to identify America’s emancipated slaves and their descendants after chattel slavery was abolished in the United States following the Civil War. America’s Freedmen were supposed to be Freemen entitled to all of the personal, political, and civil rights granted to our country’s citizens. Yet, America repeatedly used race to deny its newest Freemen the full scope of these benefits conferred with citizenship, including equal access to participate in economic opportunities. The U.S. government intentionally enacted wealth-building policies designed to exclude the Freedmen. This is the history of America’s chattel slaves and their descendants, and it will take remedies limited specifically to this group to begin to repair the injuries that now span across multiple generations.