Today’s conversation is with Justene Hill Edwards, associate professor of history at the University of Virginia. She is the author of Savings and Trust: The Rise and Betrayal of the Freedman’s Bank (Norton, 2024) and Unfree Markets: The Slaves’ Economy and the Rise of Capitalism in South Carolina (Columbia University Press, 2021).  A specialist in African American history, her research examines Black economic life in America.  She has been awarded several fellowships and awards, most recently the 2025 Virginia Literary Award for Nonfiction and the 2025 Frederick Douglass Book Prize.  She is a series editor for the History of U.S. Capitalism Series at Columbia University Press.