While slavery impoverished Africa, and particularly West Africa, it played a crucial role in the development of the modern world economy that is presently dominated by the US. The free labor of enslaved Africans produced major consumer goods and services, and provided the stimulus for shipbuilding, banking, and insurance in both the US and England. Yet after reaping the benefits of free labor, in 1865 the federal government freed 4 million Blacks in January, no less, to wander the countryside, one of the coldest months of the winter, without a dime, with no property, and largely illiterate, leaving few choices for the freed African peoples other than to exist in virtual slavery locked in place by Black Codes, convict lease, peonage, and cleverly crafted share cropping schemes. Jim Crow laws, followed by institutionalized racism, kept African descendants locked in vicious cycles of poverty that are still evident today. Presently dual systems exist in almost every area of life including wealth, poverty, health care, education, employment, and criminal punishment. Hard- won gains, such as Affirmative Action, voting rights, the right to equal education, and equal protection under the law, are being rolled back, and the victims of generations' old racism and discrimination are being blamed for their own oppression.