Rodney A. Brooks – författare

The author tells the history of the Freedman's Savings Bank, how it grew much too quickly, why it failed and the impact on Black America. The end of slavery in the United States left thousands of enslaved people with the need to survive the transition to freedom, including food, clothing, shelter, and medical care. They would also need education, money and financial services. In 1865 Congress passed legislation to create the Freedman's Bureau to provide those services. It also created the Freedman's Savings Bank. Large numbers of the formerly enslaved people had been paid for service in the Union Army – the first time many had cash. And they had no safe depository. The Freedman's Bank offered that, expanding quickly and gained millions in deposits – mostly ranging from $5 to $50. But inexperience and corruption doomed it to failure, costing may of the small depositors their savings. Some of the biggest issues facing Black consumers today may be able to trace their roots back to this debacle, from the historical distrust in banks to the racial wealth gap.Why publish now?On the heels of the social justice protests 0f 2020 and the Covid pandemic, some of the persistent and long-lasing problems facing Black Americans bubbled to the top. Black Americans suffered more than White Americans – they got sicker and died more frequently. In addition, they bore the brunt of the job losses economically and business failures.White Americans (and many Black Americans) learned about how vibrant Black communities like Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma, were burned to the ground by angry White mobs, destroying generational Black wealth. The racial wealth gap was pushed to the forefront of the debates.Many of those issues in the wealth gap – including the distrust of Banks and the lack of generational wealth in the Black community can be traced back to the collapse Freedman's Savings Bank and the resulting loss of wealth and generational wealth in Black America.This book will put the Freedman's Savings Bank in the conversation with reparations, Baby Bonds and financial literacy.

Robotics is undergoing a major transformation in scope and dimension. From a largely dominant industrial focus, robotics is rapidly expanding into human environments and vigorously engaged in its new challenges. Interacting with, assisting, serving, and exploring with humans, the emerging robots will increasingly touch people and their lives. The Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics (STAR) is devoted to bringing to the research community the latest advances in the robotics field on the basis of their significance and quality. Through a wide and timely dis­ semination of critical research developments in robotics, our objective with this series is to promote more exchanges and collaborations among the re­ searchers in the community and contribute to further advancements in this rapidly growing field. As one of robotics pioneering symposia, the International Symposium on Robotics Research (ISRR) has established over the past two decades some of the fields most fundamental and lasting contributions. Since the launching of STAR, ISRR and several other thematic symposia in robotics find an important platform for closer links and extended reach within the robotics community. This twelfth edition of Robotics Research, edited by Sebastian Thrun, Rodney Brooks, and Hugh Durrant-Whyte, offers in its 14-part volume a collection of a broad range of topics in robotics. The content of these contributions provides a wide coverage of the current state of robotics research: the advances and challenges in its theoretical foundation and technology basis, and the developments in its traditional and novel areas of apphcations.