Andre Perry is blunt in assessing the struggles of many of our country’s Black communities. “There is nothing wrong with Black people,” the noted educator, journalist, and scholar says, “that ending racism can’t solve.”

Drawing from his penetrating new book Know Your Price: Valuing Black Lives and Property in America’s Black Cities, Perry joins Emmet Pierson Jr. of the nonprofit Community Builders of Kansas City in examining the long and deliberate devaluation of African Americans and the communities in which they live. Houses in mostly Black neighborhoods, as just one glaring example, are undervalued by an average of $48,000.

Perry and Pierson assess the social and economic damage it has wreaked. There is a need, Perry says, to understand how much the entire country will gain by properly valuing Black homes and businesses, family structures, voters, and school districts.

A nationally known and respected commentator on race, structural inequality, and education, Perry is a fellow in the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Washington, D.C.-based Brookings Institution and a scholar-in-residence at American University. He also is a columnist for The Hechinger Report, a pioneering nonprofit outlet that covers inequality and innovation in education.

Pierson is the president and CEO of Community Builders of Kansas City, the city’s largest urban core developer.

The presentation is co-presented by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.

The program is preceded by a 2½-week series of online community conversations revolving around Perry’s book – on October 26, 27, and 28 and November 5 and 7.

The Library and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation present a series of online community conversations examining the strengths and assets of Black communities – long compromised by racism and discriminatory policies – as detailed in Know Your Price.