Megachurch pastor and best-selling author Bishop T.D. Jakes has partnered up with financial giant Wells Fargo. While on the surface, the 10-year partnership aimed at promoting inclusive communities would seem groundbreaking, some are wondering if the deal was made to deflect from the big bank’s racist history.

Is the move by Wells Fargo similar to the deal the National Football League made with hip-hop mogul? When the league was getting backlash from blackballing former quarterback Colin Kaepernick. over his silent kneeling to protest police brutality against Black people, the NFL inked a deal in 2019 with Jay-Z’s Roc Nation agency as the NFL’s live music entertainment strategist, co-producing the Super Bowl halftime show and choosing who gets to perform.

Through the collaboration with Jakes Group, which was announced on April 30, Wells Fargo has committed up to $1 billion to fund a variety of projects that foster community development.

“The future looks very bleak, particularly for minorities,” Jakes said to CBS News. “Black people, Brown people and also poor White people who are finding it difficult, workforce people, to find a job, to find opportunities to get housing, to get upward mobility.”

Jakes is a non-denominational Christian preacher. He is the senior pastor of The Potter’s House, a non-denominational megachurch that rakes in $5.2 million annually. Jakes has an estimated net worth of $20 million.

Wells Fargo & Company is a financial services company with approximately $1.9 trillion in assets, and the American company operates in 35 countries.

The partnership with Wells Fargo is not affiliated with Jakes’ church. The T.D. Jakes Group includes four business units, including T.D. Jakes Ministries and T.D. Jakes Foundation, both are nonprofit organizations. T.D. Jakes Enterprises and T.D. Jakes Real Estate Ventures function as profit-oriented entities.

The inaugural project of Jakes’ partnership with Wells Fargo centers around the development of mixed-income housing and retail facilities outside of Atlanta. The location for the venture is a 95-acre property formerly known as Fort McPherson, which neighbors Tyler Perry Studios, CBS News reported.

“The reason mixed-income housing is vitally important is because we tried low-income communities before and they fall into the abyss and become ghettos,” Jakes said. “Mixed-incomes have a much better result, safer, better schools, better opportunities, upward mobility.”

While the partnership will focus on helping low-income communities, some say it will not excuse Wells Fargo’s racist history.

There have been several racial discrimination lawsuits brought against the bank by Black customers, especially in regard to how it doles out mortgage loans.

The most recent lawsuit is a class-action lawsuit from last year that accuses the bank of discriminatory residential mortgage policies and lending practices against its Black customers, USA Today reported.

The lawsuit was filed on April 14, 2022, in the Northern District of California. It charges that the bank approved more white borrowers for a mortgage loan compared to Black applicants in 2020. According to the suit, Black clients, including those with high credit scores, were given an average interest rate of 3.34 percent compared to 3.23 percent for white borrowers. 

Plaintiffs, who are represented by attorney civil rights attorney Ben Crump, are seeking $5 million in damages, the lawsuit states. Linda Friedman and Suzanne Bish of Stowell & Friedman in Chicago are co-counsel with Crump. 

“Wells Fargo says its mission is helping customers succeed financially,” said Crump, during a press conference. “They’re not helping Black Americans succeed financially when they engage in a pattern of practice of corporate behavior that denies financial opportunities to customers and charges more for the same services than they charge white customers.”

Wells Fargo denies claims made in the lawsuit.

“We are deeply disturbed by allegations of discrimination that we believe do not stand up to scrutiny. We are confident that we follow relevant government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) guidelines in our decision-making and that our underwriting practices are consistently applied regardless of a customer’s race or ethnicity,” the bank said in a statement.

The statement continued, “These unfounded attacks on Wells Fargo stand in stark contrast to the company’s significant and long-term commitment to closing the minority homeownership gap.”

A Wells Fargo sign stands in front of a branch of the bank in Bradenton, Fla., Feb. 22, 2022. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)/Bishop T.D. Jakes discusses his partnership with ROC Nation at the Woman, Thou Art Loosed! The Grand Finale conference at the Georgia World Congress Center on Sept. 23, 2022 in Atlanta. (Todd Kirkland/AP Images for T.D. Jakes Ministries)