If you were making a purchase 150 years ago, and paid with a hundred-, fifty-, ten- or two-dollar bill, you would see slaves printed on the paper.

The disdain white Americans at that time had for their slaves makes you wonder why they would choose to put them on something they deemed so valuable.

If you consider that in 1863, slaves were worth three billion dollars ($83 billion in today's dollars), then you realize that the most valuable thing they owned — the thing that built the wealth white Americans still benefit from today — were Black people.

You might think that, from the end of slavery to now, the racial wealth gap would have decreased but in actuality, to this day, white Americans have an annual income substantially higher than Black Americans. The median household income (as of 2018), when you add savings and assets and subtract debt, is $171,000 for whites and $17,000 for Blacks.

Why is this gap still so large? Everything goes back to slavery.

When Special Field Order No. 15 was issued by Union Gen. William T. Sherman in January 1865, America had the opportunity to become a different place. This order seized roughly 400,000 acres of land, from Charleston, South Carolina, 245 miles south to Jacksonville, Florida. This land was intended for newly emancipated slaves.

President Lincoln signed the bill that made these plans official. However, a few weeks later he was murdered, and his successor, Andrew Johnson — who complained about discrimination against whites, "in favor of the negro" — quickly backtracked on these plans, evicting thousands of slaves whose families had spent hundreds of years creating wealth for slave owners.

This mindset has prevailed throughout history. The moment equal rights become widely discussed in favor of Blacks, the backlash from whites always comes: "What about our rights?" This is something we have seen again recently in response to the Black Lives Matter movement, with some whites proclaiming, "All Lives Matter" — disregarding the fact that not all lives are equally in danger.

White Americans have had a 300-year head start in acquiring and building wealth, with compounding interest as a benefit they have been able to take advantage of that has contributed exponentially to the growth of the wealth gap.

Furthermore, the US government has allowed Blacks to be excluded from one of the most lucrative paths for compounding interest (outside of the stock market): the real estate market. In this century, more than half of middle-class wealth has been acquired through homeownership. This has determined the jobs you can access, your safety, and the quality of your children's education.

When Franklin Roosevelt signed the New Deal during the Great Depression, which gave mortgage credit to the American people, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) wouldn't approve mortgages in "high-risk areas," and the way the risk was determined was by race.

Redlining — by which the FHA would outline areas they wouldn't provide mortgages for, which, of course, were those with more Black families — made sure that Blacks didn't have access to any of the benefits of homeownership afforded to whites. This, coupled with being paid less than their white counterparts for the same work, has resulted in Blacks making far less money annually and being far more likely to be unemployed.

This racism became justification for more racism. It became widely believed that Black families would lower property values, so real estate agents kept them out of "white neighborhoods.".

In 1968 housing discrimination was outlawed, but that doesn't mean it stopped. Real estate agents still went out of their way to keep Blacks out of white neighborhoods, and years of discrimination left a huge homeownership gap that the government realized it could take advantage of.

In the '90s, the government made a push to open up the mortgage market with subprime loans, targeting Black churches. Banks made agreements with pastors to give donations for each parishioner who got a mortgage.

These loans would start out cheap and become much more expensive over time, especially for those with bad credit. Yet, one in five borrowers with good credit would only be offered subprime loans, despite having an 800+ credit score. This irresponsible lending fueled by greed led to the stock market and housing crash of 2008, as well as the Great Recession, which cost Black communities 53% of their wealth.

For a long time, it was thought the wealth gap was correlated to a gap in education. However, Black women have become the most educated group of people in our country — and that still barely lowers the wealth gap. In fact, a white college graduate will have a dramatic increase of wealth over a couple of decades, while contemporaneous Black college graduates will see their wealth decrease.

The primary reason for this is how they spend their money. Black college graduates have often been the most successful members of their families, who will then ask for help financially, and of course the graduates will give it. White graduates, on the other hand, are more likely following in their families' footsteps, and are not burdened by the obligation of helping them survive.

So how do you close this huge wealth gap between Blacks and whites? Even the term sends ripples of disgust and dismay through white communities, who act out what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stated: "Whenever the issue of compensatory treatment for the Negro is raised, some of our friends' recoil in horror. The Negro should be granted equality, they agree, but he should ask nothing more. On the surface, this appears reasonable, but it is not realistic."

He goes on to say, "A society that has done something special against the Negro for hundreds of years must now do something special for the Negro."

And that special thing would be reparations.

It would be the fastest way to fight back against government policy that keeps perpetuating the racial wealth gap, and yet the Black community doesn't push for it. Black men earn $0.87 for every dollar earned by a white man, and so equal pay for equal work, equal rights, and fair treatment is all that has truly been asked of our country.

But still, when these topics become widely discussed, whites prove their racism and desire to be superior with the same backlash, "What about our rights?"