Slavery still runs through the nation’s veins

[struggle4progress]

JACK SHULER

... I interviewed .. Lula Williams who will turn 95 years old this month.

Lula’s grandmother, Eliza Jane Smiley, was a slave.

... Eliza Jane’s father was also her master. As she grew up, Eliza Jane became the personal slave of her master/father’s young daughter. In fact, Eliza Jane slept on the floor next to her bed ...

... the Confederate battle flag was the flag of an army supporting a group of people fighting to protect a way of life that included, among other things, a little girl asleep in a comfortable bed with her slave sister sleeping on the floor beside her ...

http://www.salon.com/2016/06/19/how_close_we_are_to_slavery_americas_horrible_legacy_still_deeply_runs_through_the_nations_veins/

[KT2000]

1. yes it does

instead of acknowledging the sacrifice of slaves, white people want to shame black people for the slave history. They should be paying reparations, erecting statues showing respect, and everything else this country does for people who have sacrificed for this country - especially since it was against their will.

[applegrove]

2. And that slavery made the USA very rich for a long time. They were the equivalent

of what oil was to the 20th century (and it looks like oil companies will fight as hard and dirty to keep an oil based economy as the south fought to keep slavery). And African americans still have not seen a penny of that wealth. When I took US history in grade 13 in canada, we were taught that the civil war was not fought over slavery but was over state's rights. I was shocked. I'm even more shocked today when I realize that was propaganda to keep the truth about slavery at bay to further the GOP'S needs. Which is just more exploitation.Thankfully the truth is now getting out and America is beginning to reconcile it's past. So that Americans know themselves. So that many are not fooled again by the GOP.

[marble falls]

3. There are more black men in prison today than there were black slaves in 1850 ...

slavery is still very much alive.