Black people in America won their personal freedom 158 years ago. However, economic freedom was much more difficult.

Veteran portfolio manager Jim Casselberry is trying to do something about it, using his four decades of investment experience to help bridge the gap between people of color and Indigenous people.

“We’ve got to get better, and we’ve got to get better by getting the capital in the hands of the right people,” Casselberry said in a recent interview. “We want to help them stand up and take advantage of the talent, opportunity and skills they have.”

Juneteenth, which is celebrated in the US on Monday, has been considered a national holiday for two years. It commemorates the day Major General Gordon Granger proclaimed freedom for slaves in Texas.

While the holiday marks a terrible wrong that was eventually righted, it does not signal the end of racial inequality in the U.S. Nowhere is this clearer than in the distribution of wealth.

Now the numbers are painfully familiar: Blacks make up 13% of the population but hold just 4% of the wealth. The 400 richest Americans have the same wealth as the entire black population. The racial gap between white and black people is 6 to 1 – better than the 23 to 1 in 1870 after emancipation, but still a huge gap. These statistics are from Federal Reserve System in Minneapolis from 2019.

Bridging that gap is part of the mission of Known, which Casselberry co-founded in 2021 with a team of Black, Indigenous, Hispanic and Asian-American co-founders. His premise is listed as “A finance and asset management firm that works with founders, family offices and large asset owners who value competitive returns as well as strong long-term racial, social and climate impact.”

Casselberry said the goal is right in the name.

“The reason we even use the term ‘known,’ especially with the black, brown and indigenous population, is that we want them to feel like they’re known, that they see that we have the skills to do it,” he said. “So many programs and so many opportunities … don’t work, but they haven’t necessarily been given the opportunity to work.”

Programs like affirmative action have helped make progress, he said, but he believes broader reforms are necessary.

“Given the polarized and dysfunctional government we have, it is unlikely at best that we will see reparations on any meaningful scale. Philanthropy has tried many approaches, but even they are not on a scale to affect the problem,” he said.

“The real solution lies in the capital markets, where the real money is found and managed, but where more than 98% of the funds under management are controlled by the old majority white firms,” ​​Casselberry added.

Treasury data shows that the wealth gap between white and black families has changed little over the past 20 years.

Casselberry hopes the efforts of organizations like this one can help change that.

“Known was created as a solution for asset holders who want the ability to invest for better results,” he said. “And it is created as access to source capital for [Black, Indigenous and People of Color] community so that we have access and we can grow and we can create opportunities.”