2 THE FREEDMEN’S SAVINGS BANK
tion, to describe its possibilities, its development,
its decline and collapse, and to show how it influenced
 the Negroes.
ECONOMIC WEAKNESS OF THE NEGRO RACE
Aside from the question of race and status perhaps
 the greatest weakness of the Negro population
 in 1865 was its extreme poverty. In spite of
destruction by war there was still much accumulated
 wealth in the southern states, but it was
in the hands of the stronger race; the Negro,
therefore, could not begin with equal opportunities.
 Under slavery the Negro had assimilated
much of the white man’s civilization: he could
speak the language; he had accepted the Christian
 religion; and in manners and customs he had
imitated the whites. But slavery, though it had
eradicated many primitive traits and had shown
the Negro what he had not previously known, the
virtue of hard labor, still had not taught him
self-reliance or thrift. So the year 1865 saw the
Negro population of the United States, with
what it had gained during the period of servitude,
 thrown suddenly into a somewhat highly
organized, though defective, economic society,
with some serious weaknesses to hinder its wellbeing
 and progress. It was an alien race in America;it
 was not self-reliant;it was not experienced;
it was uneducated; and it had almost no economic
 asset except its capacity for labor.
The Negro’s ability to work was then, and has
been at all times since then, the greatest strength
of the race. In the South this labor was much
needed, and there was a possibility that within