Many wealthy members of Congress are descendants of rich slaveholders − new study demonstrates the enduring legacy of slavery

A statue of Jefferson Davis, second from left, is on display in Statuary Hall on Capitol Hill in Washington. A slaveholder, Davis represented Mississippi in the Senate and House before the American Civil War. AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File by Neil K R Sehgal, University of Pennsylvania and Ashwini Sehgal, Case Western Reserve University The legacy of slavery in America remains a divisive issue, with sharp political divides. Some argue that slavery still contributes to modern economic inequalities. Others believe its effects have largely faded. One way to measure the legacy of slavery is to determine whether the disproportionate riches of slaveholders have been passed down to their present-day descendants. Connecting the wealth of a slaveholder in the 1860s to today’s economic conditions is not easy. Doing so requires unearthing data for a large number of people on slaveholder ancestry, current wealth and other factors such as age and education. But in a new study, we tackled this challenge by focusing on one of the few groups of Americans for whom such information exists: members of Congress. We found that legislators who are descendants of slaveholders are significantly wealthier than members of Congress without slaveholder ancestry. How slavery made the South...