There is an active U.S. discussion about whether African Americans benefited from the horrific ills of bondage and slavery. A Florida governor who is a candidate for the Republican Party’s 2024 nomination for U.S. president is proudly touting such in his state education’s rewriting of history. His appointees are doubling down on the claim that there were productive, career benefits from the skills utilized by African Americans who were enslaved.

This newspaper clipping from a century+ ago is among the documents that mirror today’s comments from proponents of the rewritten history that slavery benefited African Americans.

To all ancestry researchers, search the newspapers for articles in the states where your ancestors resided. It is great insight in what policies and practices they endured while being subjected to the cruelties of forced, unpaid servitude.