African American

Texas and Louisiana’s First Spouses’ Global Human Trafficking Summit – 10.14.21
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Texas and Louisiana’s First Spouses’ Global Human Trafficking Summit – 10.14.21

First Lady of Texas Cecilia Abbott and First Lady of Louisiana Donna Edwards have partnered in the past year to educate other first spouses along with key stakeholders across the country on anti-human trafficking efforts and resources they can bring back to their own states. The latest educational summit in October 2021 was hosted by the Texas Governor’s Child Sex Trafficking…

Forced Labor Continues in Colorado, Years After Vote to End Prison Slavery  – Bolts
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Forced Labor Continues in Colorado, Years After Vote to End Prison Slavery  – Bolts

Throughout Abron Arrington’s decades-long incarceration in Colorado, he often found himself in solitary confinement—not because he was causing trouble, but simply because he refused to work. He didn’t see the point given he was paid 13 cents an hour and figured his time could be better spent learning physics. Before Arrington was incarcerated in 1989,…

Dave Hannigan: Ritual abuse in locker room puts American college football beyond the pale
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Dave Hannigan: Ritual abuse in locker room puts American college football beyond the pale

A rookie making a mistake in training or during a game for the Northwestern University Wildcats was punished with “running”. Not actual laps; this was just the code name given to something involving eight or 10 senior players donning Purge masks, pinning the neophyte down in the locker room and then “dry-humping” him as the…

'We're here to help': Trafficking survivor supports community as resource center executive director
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'We're here to help': Trafficking survivor supports community as resource center executive director

BRATTLEBORO — Jean Marie Davis may not be a well-known name around town, she actually lives in New Hampshire. But she has an incredible story to tell. Davis is a mother, a 20-year survivor of human trafficking, and the executive director of Branches Pregnancy Resource Center at 26 Birge St. in Brattleboro. Branches is a…

As other states ban unpaid ‘slave’ prison labor, lawmakers drop plans to tackle issue in Florida
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As other states ban unpaid ‘slave’ prison labor, lawmakers drop plans to tackle issue in Florida

It’s in your civics classes. The 13th Amendment of the US Constitution, ratified in 1865, abolished slavery and involuntary servitude. But there was one glaring exception clause: if convicted by state courts, incarcerated Americans can be slaves of the state. Four states banned slavery during last year’s general elections — 150 years after enslaved Black…

California lawmakers revive effort to ban involuntary servitude as punishment for crimes
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California lawmakers revive effort to ban involuntary servitude as punishment for crimes

Last year, voters in Vermont, Oregon, Tennessee and Alabama approved historic ballot measures that removed slavery and involuntary servitude as punishment for crime from their state constitutions, which could lead to limitations on forced prison labor. They joined a growing list of states that passed similar initiatives in recent years, including Nebraska, Utah and Colorado….

Advocates are sharing ways to combat human trafficking in Hampton Roads
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Advocates are sharing ways to combat human trafficking in Hampton Roads

HAMPTON ROADS, Va. — Human trafficking is a modern take on slavery across the world, and within Hampton Roads trafficking numbers continue to increase. As stated on the Human Trafficking Hotline, in 2022 Virginia ranked 22nd for the number of trafficking calls. Trafficking situations include sex trafficking, labor trafficking, and sex & laboring trafficking. Human…

Why one woman plants crops to fight oppression
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Why one woman plants crops to fight oppression

Eva Dickerson has spent her life thinking about food. Not just about what to eat, but more specifically what it means to have access to food, to groceries and space to grow crops. “Food access might ask why there isn’t a grocery store in someone’s neighborhood,” Dickerson, 26, said, “but food apartheid might ask who…

They received reparations in 2022. Did it really change their lives?
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They received reparations in 2022. Did it really change their lives?

Louis Weathers didn’t know what to think when he heard he was going to receive reparations for slavery. He had listened to people talking about reparations — people such as Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton — during the two decades he’d lived in Washington DC. But it was always couched as a demand, or an aspiration:…