Black Liberation Through the Marketplace with Rachel Ferguson

If we face America’s racial history squarely, will it mean that the American project is a failure? Conversely, if we think the American project is a worthy endeavor, do we have to lie, downplay, or equivocate about our past?

In this book, we use the classical liberal lens to ask Americans on the political right to seriously reckon with America’s deep racial pain — much of which arises from violations of rights that conservatives say they deeply value, such as property rights, freedom of contract and the protection of the rule of law. We ask those on the left to take a hard look at the failed paternalism, and in some cases, thoroughgoing racism of past progressive policy. All Americans are asked to apply their concern for individual rights and constitutional order fairly to our historical record. What readers will find are deep injustices against black Americans. But they will also find black entrepreneurs overcoming amazing obstacles and a black community that has created flourishing institutions and culture.

Exhausted by extremism on both left and right, a majority of Americans — black and white — love this country and want to do right by all of its citizens. In Black Liberation Through the Marketplace, readers will come away with a better understanding of black history and creative ideas for how to make this nation truly one with liberty and justice for all.

About the Speaker

Rachel Ferguson is the Director of the Free Enterprise Center at Concordia University Chicago, Assistant Dean of the College of Business and Professor of Business Ethics.

She is an affiliate scholar of the Acton Institute and co-author of Black Liberation Through the Marketplace: Hope, Heartbreak and the Promise of America. She is also an Affiliate Scholar at the Acton Institute. Her commentary has been featured at National Review, the Christian Post, the Acton Power Blog, Discourse Magazine, Profectus, Law and Liberty, EconLib, the Online Library of Liberty.