Portside

Reader Comments: Sanders and African American support, Labor endorsements divides union ranks, GOP attacks on Hillary;; Slavery, a national institution; Syrian Refugees and growing movement to welcome refugees; Unions, Contracts and the NLRB; Public Education for Sale; Puerto Rico's new party; Support for UE resolution on BDS; Julian Bond honored; Announcements: The Art of Peggy Lipschutz; more...

The Thirteenth Amendment forbade slavery and involuntary servitude, “except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.”

Whether or not the words “slave” or “slavery” appear in the text of the Constitution, they dominate its spirit. Slavery profoundly altered the four months of Constitutional debate with respect to how slaves would be counted for apportionment, how often the census would be taken, how a president would be elected. By the time the Constitution was signed on September 17, 1787, slavery had indeed become a national institution.

Tula Connell draws insights from the award winning Empire of Cotton: A Global History by Sven Beckert (2014) to understand the events at Rana Plaza and the role of cotton empire today. She also updates us on the efforts of workers to gain rights, and what is blocking it..the empire of cotton.

Just as in the 1850s (with the Dred Scott decision and the Fugitive Slave Act), the Southern labor system (with low pay and no unions) is wending its way north.

Reader Comments: Response to Occupy; Greece and Debt Forgiveness; Why Bernie Sanders; Confederate Flags, Symbols, and Racism; U.S. Torture Program; Death Penalty; and more... Announcements: Benefit Concert for Civil Rights; Rally for Eric Garner; NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and The Voting Rights Act at 50; Rosenberg Case Bombshell - Key Witness Lied; Robert Meeropol statement

A new BBC documentary tells how a trove of documents lays bare the names of Britain’s 46,000 slave owners, including relatives of Gladstone and Orwell

False history marginalizes African Americans and makes us all dumber. The Confederates won with the pen (and the noose) what they could not win on the battlefield: the cause of white supremacy and the dominant understanding of what the war was all about. We are still digging ourselves out from under the misinformation they spread. When each state left the Union, they made clear they were seceding because they were for slavery.