from here
Then there is this article 'The Forgotten origins of Wall Street in Slave Auctions' which covers some of the history of the treatment of slaves and the part they played in building America, of which I include a small portion:
Of all the commodities traded over time on Wall Street, the one that goes discreetly unmentioned in historical markers is human beings — the anxious throngs of kidnapped slaves that the New York City government routinely rented and auctioned off across half a century at the end of Wall Street at the East River.
This omission seems particularly egregious on a street where the excellent Museum of American Finance currently presents all manner of economic history and profit-building commodities, from railroads to cotton [no insight into how cotton was produced as if it flowered from slaveowners' hands...].
But no spotlight at all on slaves, even though they were pioneer Wall Streeters — their labor built much of the city’s infrastructure, including the early City Hall, stretches of Broadway and the signature wall that first defined Wall Street. The city is finally rectifying this with plans for a 16-by-24-inch memorial sign whose wording has not been set but will acknowledge that the city did indeed run a profitable slave market, rivaled only by Charleston, S.C., as a hub for the American slave traffic.
However egregious we may judge the historical record to be socialists worldwide would agree that the ultimate reparations for all African Americans would be, along with all other US citizens of whatever ethnicity, to become citizens of a wholly equitable, colour-blind world society organised by the people for the people, where all have free access to the requirements of life and all contribute according to ability. Socialism for a free world and socialism for freedom.
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