Bank One tells city its units may have had ties to slavery

• Originally published in the Chicago Sun Times 6/9/2004 [here]

Bank One has filed an affidavit with City Hall warning that it "owns subsidiaries that conduct business in states where slavery was practiced" and that predecessors of some of those companies may have had ties to slavery. Although Bank One checked the box that says it has "found records relating to investments or profits from slavery," the carefully worded disclosure statement filed by Bank One Capital Markets in connection with a water bond issue makes no such claim.

It merely states that such ties may exist because of the history of its many subsidiaries and the states in which they did business. And it promises to come clean and supplement future affidavits when and if specific ties are uncovered.

Ald. Dorothy Tillman (3rd), City Council champion of the slave reparations movement, denounced the Bank One filing as corporate "double-talk." She wondered aloud whether the banking giant on the verge of merging with J.P. Morgan Chase may have a secret in its past that it is unwilling to make public.

"Why are they checking Box Two if they haven't found anything? The law doesn't say, 'Check in case.' Bank One is playing a game. Why are they playing this game?" Tillman said.

Tillman vowed to put together a research team to pore through Bank One's records, just as she did to uncover similar skeletons in the closet of J.P. Morgan Chase. She has accused J.P. Morgan Chase of profiting from the slave trade and lying about it on an affidavit.

Bank One spokesman Tom Kelly said the bank isn't hiding anything it already knows. The affidavit is merely an attempt to avoid a repeat of the slave disclosure controversy that has embroiled J.P. Morgan Chase.

''We're doing this in response to the attention the issue has gotten and the guidance we've received from the corporation counsel," Kelly said.

"Bank One covers 14 states, including Louisiana, Texas and Indiana. We're basically going back and taking another look. We wanted to make sure we were clear every step of the way," he said.

In its affidavit, Bank One states it is "using both internal and external resources" to research the history of its predecessors to determine if those companies "may have done business with persons or entities" that employed slaves prior to 1866.

The economic disclosure statement will be amended if Bank One "discovers records that indicate it or its predecessors made investments or profits from slavery, the slave industry or slaveholder insurance policies and/or the names of any slaves or slaveholders," the affidavit states.

In October 2002, Chicago became the first city to demand that city contractors either scour records and come clean about past ties to slavery or get off the governmental gravy train.