slavery

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Brazil Rescues 4,600 Slaves in 2008

(Newser) - Brazil freed more than 4,600 slaves this year after storming a record number of remote farms, the Guardian reports. Often teaming up with federal police, the government's anti-slavery task force raided 255 farms, but advocates say thousands of poor are still being trapped into debt slavery. "It is...

Brazilian Busted in Murder of US Nun Nabbed on Slavery Charges

Dorothy Stang's slaying was subject of movie

(Newser) - A Brazilian rancher facing charges in the death of a 73-year-old American nun has been arrested again for fraud and slavery in the same Amazon region where the nun was shot three years ago, reports CNN. Evidence supporting the latest charges will be used at his murder trial. Four others...

Rap's Roots Found in, Uh, Scotland?
Rap's Roots Found in, Uh, Scotland?
Dec 28, 2008 8:02 PM CST

Rap's Roots Found in, Uh, Scotland?

Scots' obscene verbal tradition gave birth to musical 'dueling': prof

(Newser) - While most don't associate rap with a bunch of white guys in skirts, a University of New Mexico professor traces the music’s roots back to the barrooms of medieval Scotland, the London Telegraph reports. “The Scots have a lengthy tradition of flyting—intense verbal jousting, often laced with...

Jefferson- Hemings History Wins National Book Award

Tome details founding father's slave family

(Newser) - The heart-wrenching and controversial history of Thomas Jefferson's secret family with slave Sally Hemings took the top prize for nonfiction at the National Book Awards last night, USA Today reports. Annette Gordon-Reed became the first African-American woman to win the prize for her detailed exploration of the lives of three...

Obama the 'Unofficial' Winner in N. Carolina

Old Confederacy state a historic win for black president

(Newser) - In North Carolina, they're calling Barack Obama the "unofficial" victor, the News & Observer reports, after the state elections director said late yesterday that provisional ballots not yet counted are unlikely to overturn the president-elect's lead. Obama leads John McCain by 13,746 votes, with 40,000 uncounted,...

He's Not 'Post-Race,' But Barack's Coming to Dinner

Americans still getting to know man who isn't post-race after all

(Newser) - If there’s anything that the candidacy of Barack Obama proved, it’s that America isn’t “post-race,” Frank Rich writes in the New York Times. White liberals in politics and the news media trip have gotten him consistently wrong, Rich writes, in trying to compare him with...

Miss. McCains Descended From Plantation Slaves

Mississippi descendants of McCain family slaves plan to vote for Obama

(Newser) - The McCain family of Teoc, Miss., is watching this year's election with particular interest, the Wall Street Journal reports. The African-American clan is descended from plantation slaves owned by the family of John McCain's great-great-grandfather. The white and black McCains meet for regular family reunions, although the senator himself has...

Elisabeth Fritzl Describes Life Under Josef

Father would threaten to hurt kids if daughter resisted rape

(Newser) - Elisabeth Fritzl describes as horrific life under the control of father Josef in the Austrian cellar where she and her children lived, the Telegraph reports. "He was very brutal against me," the 42-year-old said of the man who fathered seven children with her. Elisabeth, discovered in April, detailed...

Incest Father Fritzl May Face Slavery Charges

Trial for Austrian who locked up daughter planned for December

(Newser) - Josef Fritzl, the Austrian who imprisoned daughter Elisabeth in a cellar for 24 years and fathered seven children with her, may be charged with slavery, among other crimes, the Guardian reports. Officials plan to ready the case against him by September for a December trial, said a prosecutor. Fritzl has...

Obama Against Reparations for Slavery

Prefers schools, jobs; opposes legislation backed by NAACP

(Newser) - Barack Obama opposes offering reparations to the descendants of slaves, putting him at odds with some black groups and leaders. The man with a serious chance to become the nation's first black president argues that government should instead combat the legacy of slavery by improving schools, health care and the...

House Measure Apologizes for US Slavery

Resolution marks first official expression of regret for divisive past

(Newser) - The House has apologized to black Americans for the wrongs committed against them and their ancestors who suffered under slavery and Jim Crow segregation laws. Today's resolution marks the first time Congress has ever formally apologized for America's past history of enslaving and discriminating against blacks.

Ex-Slave Sues Gov't of Niger
 Ex-Slave Sues Gov't of Niger  
Apr 9, 2008 9:51 AM CDT

Ex-Slave Sues Gov't of Niger

Says she was bargained for 'like a goat'

(Newser) - A young woman was bargained over "like a goat" and sold for $500 at the age of 12, she revealed yesterday in emotional testimony at a landmark slavery trial in an international court in West Africa. The 24-year-old former slave is suing the government of Niger for failing to...

Lincoln Letter Sells for $3.4M

Letter contains Lincoln's reply to kids' plea to free slave children

(Newser) - An 1864 letter from Abraham Lincoln to Massachusetts schoolchildren fetched a record $3.4 million at auction yesterday, a record for an American manuscript, CNN reports. In the letter, Lincoln responded to a petition from 195 youngsters asking him to "free all the little slave children of this country"...

Kara Walker's Art Shocks, Awes
Kara Walker's Art Shocks, Awes
Feb 3, 2008 7:33 PM CST

Kara Walker's Art Shocks, Awes

Exhibit at the Whitney has 'nightmarish quality'

(Newser) - American artist Kara Walker stirs up “a toxic stew of race, sex, power and history” with her work—now enjoying a retrospective at the Whitney Museum in New York—exploding antebellum stereotypes about black bodies, Rosalind Cumming-Yeates writes in Ebony. The youngest artist ever to receive a Macarthur “...

Couple Guilty of Keeping Slaves
Couple Guilty of Keeping Slaves
Dec 17, 2007 10:31 PM CST

Couple Guilty of Keeping Slaves

Chaos in court as verdict is read

(Newser) - Pandemonium reigned in a Long Island federal court today as verdicts in a sensational slavery case were being read. The jury found a wealthy Indian couple, Varsha Sabhnani, 46, and her husband Mahender, 51, guilty on 12 counts, including forced labor, debt servitude and harboring illegal immigrants for mistreating two...

Black Families Need Their 40 Acres
Black Families Need Their
40 Acres
OPINION
Nov 18, 2007 3:22 PM CST

Black Families Need Their 40 Acres

The ticket to black success is property ownership, says Gates

(Newser) - With a poll last week showing that African Americans no longer think of themselves as a "single race," Henry Louis Gates Jr explores causes of  the widening gap between middle class and poor blacks. His study of 20 highly successful African Americans, from Oprah to Whoopi to...

Voodoo Child Smugglers Busted in Netherlands

Young prostitutes took mystic vows

(Newser) - Dutch police have broken a child prostitution ring that used voodoo to control its young charges, authorities announced today. Authorities found missing Nigerian children prostituting themselves in France, Italy, and Spain, apparently obeying mystic vows given them by their kidnappers and voodoo shamans. Police have so far arrested dozens accused...

African History Endures in Downtown NY

Monument on site of burial ground honors slaves, free blacks

(Newser) - Concealed for centuries beneath what are now Manhattan skyscrapers, a burial ground uncovered in 1991 teemed with life today as a ceremony honoring African and African American people and their histories marked the dedication of a $50 million granite memorial. "Now we have an opportunity to right some of...

Flip-Floppers See Light—Or Just Want Job

Romney and Kerry stand in long line of political mind-changing

(Newser) - Maybe Mitt Romney and John Kerry should hold their flip-flopping heads high: Changes of mind have furthered the causes of abolition and civil rights over the centuries. Ronald Reagan defiantly claimed his biggest reversal—promising feet “in concrete” about raising taxes, then singing “the sound of concrete cracking”...

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