History Lesson 8 — Blood in the Banks

Brought to you by Baldy’s Music Group

Blood in the Banks is a spoken word performance exposing the financial machinery that turned human lives into profit. Slavery was not just a system of plantations and chains — it was an international business backed by banks, investors, and insurance companies.

Lloyd’s of London insured slave ships. Wall Street opened with a slave market at its core. Shares of stock were sold in human cargo, and entire fortunes were built on bondage. Every drowned body, every voyage, every mutilated life was calculated into ledgers as risk, loss, or gain.

This performance reveals how slavery was written into the balance sheets of the world’s richest institutions. It wasn’t just brutality on the fields — it was capitalism in its purest, bloodiest form. The banks still stand today, their foundations stained with the lives they once monetized.