Here’s an excellent episode of Crash Course, on the history of slavery.

I once met a woman in the South who tried to convince me that slavery wasn’t that bad, jarring me into the realization that the spirit of exploitation, rooted in entitlement, has not disappeared.

When it comes to our responsibility to end injustice, I think Frederick Douglass, a former slave and abolitionist leader, put it best:

“They would not call it slavery, but some other name. Slavery has been fruitful in giving herself names … and it will call itself by yet another name; and you and I and all of us had better wait and see what new form this old monster will assume, in what new skin this old snake will come forth.”

Let us not sacrifice justice on the altar of self-interest.

Feature photo: Oklahoma Cotton Field: Overseer and Negro cottonpickers, ca. 1897–98, Creative Commons via Wikimedia Commons