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New York City is planning to acknowledge its rarely discussed history in the slave trade with an official marker at the location that served as the city’s slave market from 1711 to 1762. From its founding as New Amsterdam, the city was shaped by slavery. Slaves physically built the infrastructure of lower Manhattan. In the city’s early days bankers and merchants grew rich from their connection to the trade of Southern sugar and cotton, which was based on slave labor. New York’s wealth was so connected to slavery the mayor of New York proposed the city side with the South and secede from the Union during the Civil War. Listen to learn more about the fascinating history of slavery in this modern day progressive city.
Story Length: 8:57
WNYC
AIR DATE: 04/14/2015
April 9, 2015
4:10
Where does your fish come from? A year-long journalistic investigation found that some of the fish that ends up in U.S. food products appears to have been been caught by slaves. People from Burma are being held against their will and forced to work loading and unloading fish on a remote island in Indonesia. When this modern day slavery was uncovered, reporters traced the route of this fish all the way to American stores, tables and pet food. Listen to learn more about how slavery still exists in parts of the world.
Read MoreJanuary 21, 2014
7:43
Kate Byroade knew her family once owned slaves. She feels uncomfortable acknowledging that her ancestors dominated other people, but she knows that the story is important. As Kate has learned more about her family’s past, it has become increasingly personal for her and hard to reconcile. For instance, she felt troubled when she learned that an ancestor once owned an 8-year-old child. Listen to this story to hear more about how Kate thinks about her family’s slave-owning past.
Read MoreJanuary 20, 2014
7:49
The movie '12 Years a Slave' has inspired some people to uncover connections between their own families and slavery. A San Francisco man talks about how he felt when he discovered his ancestors had been slaves in North Carolina. He studied old documents and record books that revealed both struggle and resilience in his family’s past. These stories feel deeply personal to him, and they’ve affected him in powerful ways. Listen to learn more about what this man and others have learned about their ancestors.
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