Slavery is not new to America. It was the year 1619 when the first African slaves arrived in Virginia. Allow for just a moment for the reality of that situation to sink in. Men, women and children were involuntarily uprooted from their homes, violently packed onto a ship like canned sardines and taken to a new land where they would be worked to the bone day after day.

Over the next 250 years, America would see many slaves step onto its soil. The US Constitution would make slavery illegal in the Northwest Territory in 1787 but Congress would not ban the slave trade until 1808. The demand for slave labor sky rocketed at the invention of Eli Whitney’s cotton gin in 1793. Those who tried to revolt were hanged. Those who tried to escape and were caught were returned to their slave master per a federal law. In 1863 President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation declaring “that all persons held as slaves” within the Confederate state “are, and henceforward shall be free.” Two years later the thirteenth amendment abolishes slavery throughout the United States. However, it would be 2 months before slaves in Texas heard the news they had been freed.

“It has been called by a great many names and it will call itself by yet another, and all of us had better wait and see what new form this old monster will assume.” –Frederick Douglass

continue reading

“The American people have a right to know that what they are buying was not made on the backs of slaves.” That somber statement, along with several other halting comments and statistics, are part of what you hear watching “At the End of Slavery”, an International Justice Mission (IJM) production.

January 11th was national Human Trafficking (HT) awareness day. The church I attend hosted a showing of At the End of Slavery to help unveil the realities of HT in today’s world. Not only did the film provide a look into the world of modern day slavery, it touched upon the realities of it happening right here in the United States.  After the film we heard from a young woman who is a survivor of human trafficking and who lived as a domestic slave for years in Irvine, CA. For those who are unfamiliar with the area, Irvine is considered one of the safest places to live in America as well as being one of the wealthiest cities in Orange County. This woman’s story of survival is incredible. She is a testament to the reality that slavery does exist in America and that it can be stopped.

continue reading