NEFE Spotlight: How Financial Reporting Can Combat Racial Injustice

At first, they were just rumors. But they got Stephannie Stokes thinking.

“I kept hearing stories about (Black) homeowners selling their properties to investors for very low amounts of cash,” she said. “And these amounts did not match the rising property values that were coming with all the economic development around them.”

When Stokes, a reporter at WABE 90.1 FM, Atlanta's NPR station, started looking into it, she realized the rumors were true: Atlanta’s Black homeowners weren’t getting what they deserved.

For her work, Stokes was the winner of the 2021 Excellence in Personal Finance Reporting Awards, Radio, presented by RTDNA and the National Endowment for Financial Education (NEFE). She spoke during a panel discussion featuring other winners of the award at RTDNA 21 in Denver.

“I immediately saw the connection between these stories and generational wealth,” she said. “I know the history of housing in Atlanta and that Black homeowners, for example, have been historically disadvantaged in buying homes and selling homes and getting money out of their homes. The fact that this was happening again, still, in 2020 was very concerning to me.”

Hear more from Stokes in the video above. Listen to her award-winning report here.