Boycott! – 21 Major Corporations that got rich from Slavery
RasTafari TV Campaign: Save Our Culture – End Genocide
Calling for an immediate Cease Support of all major and minor corporations and individuals who own products and service that profit from the Black Holocaust of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. (Visit RTV Save Our Culture Campaign)
Our mantra?
Save Our Culture from Mass Genocide
Cease from Funding our Own Demise
Know who you support in Business and in Life
And one by one, we will cut off the enemy supply and
Transfer the Wealth of the Wicked over to our side.
“Therefore this is what the LORD says: “‘Your wife will become a prostitute in the city, and your sons and daughters will fall by the sword. Your land will be measured and divided up, and you yourself will die in a pagan country. And Israel will surely go into exile, away from their native land.'” Amos 7:17
History has consistently shown that slavery has diminished the quality of life and morals for all people, especially the Ethiopian/African living in exile at home and abroad. Slavery has simultaneously enhanced the quality of life for the children of our captors and colonizers. From institutionalized racism to blocked social and economic opportunities, Ethiopians worldwide are often excluded of African Americans.
Apologies cannot compensate an entire race of people for all of the social and economic ills they face as a result of their enslavement. They cannot address the residual effects of slavery. They cannot provide job opportunities to a race of people who are experiencing high unemployment rates. Apologies without action from the very systems they helped to create. Had it not been for slave labor, many corporations would not be where they are today and for these companies to acknowledge their involvement in slavery and then simply say ‘Oh, I’m sorry”, is to downplay their role in perpetuating the degradation are nothing more than a futile attempt to correct a wrong by pacifying the wronged. Instead of apologies, these companies could give back to the African American community by donating to HBCUs, investing in minority businesses, offering more minority scholarships, or launching initiatives to increase their number of minority employees. These companies include:
1. Lehman Brothers, whose business empire started in the slave trade, recently admitted their part in the business of slavery.
According to the Sun Times, the financial services firm acknowledged recently that its founding partners owned not one, but several enslaved Africans during the Civil War era and that, “in all likelihood,” it “profited significantly” from slavery.
“This is a sad part of our heritage …We’re deeply apologetic … It was a terrible thing … There’s no one sitting in the United States in the year 2005, hopefully, who would ever, in a million years, defend the practice,” said Joe Polizzotto, general counsel of Lehman Brothers.
2. JPMorgan Chase recently admitted their company’s links to slavery.
“Today, we are reporting that this research found that, between 1831 and 1865, two of our predecessor banks—Citizens Bank and Canal Bank in Louisiana—accepted approximately 13,000 enslaved individuals as collateral on loans and took ownership of approximately 1,250 of them when the plantation owners defaulted on the loans,” the company wrote in a statement.
3. New York Life
New York Life found that its predecessor (Nautilus Insurance Company) sold slaveholder policies during the mid-1800s.
New York Life Insurance Company is the largest mutual life insurance company in the United States. They also took part in slavery by selling insurance policies on enslaved Africans.
According to USA Today, evidence of 10 more New York Life slave policies comes from an 1847 account book kept by the company’s Natchez, Miss. agent, W.A. Britton. The book, part of a collection at Louisiana State University, contains Britton’s notes on slave policies he wrote for amounts ranging from $375 to $600. A 1906 history of New York Life says 339 of the company’s first 1,000 policies were written on the lives of slaves.
4. N M Rothschild & Sons Bank in London was linked to slavery. The company that was one of the biggest names in the City of London had previously undisclosed links to slavery in the British colonies. Documents seen by the Financial Times have revealed that Nathan Mayer Rothschild, the banking family’s 19th-century patriarch, made his first personal gains by using enslaved Africans as collateral in dealings with a slave owner.
5. Norfolk Southern also has a history in the slave trade. The Mobile & Girard company, which is now part of Norfolk Southern, offered slaveholders $180 ($3,379 today) apiece for enslaved Africans they would rent to the railroad for one year, according to the records. The Central of Georgia, another company aligned with Norfolk Southern Line today, valued its slaves at $31,303 ($663,033 today) on record.
6. Norfolk Southern also has a history in the slave trade. The Mobile & Girard company, which is now part of Norfolk Southern, offered slaveholders $180 ($3,379 today) apiece for enslaved Africans they would rent to the railroad for one year, according to the records. The Central of Georgia, another company aligned with Norfolk Southern Line today, valued its slaves at $31,303 ($663,033 today) on record.
7. USA Today has found that their own parent company, E.W. Scripps and Gannett, has had links to the slave trade.
8. Tiffany and Co.
Tiffany and Co. was originally financed with profits from a Connecticut cotton mill. The mill operated from cotton picked by slaves.
9. Aetna, Inc.,
Aetna, Inc., insured the lives of slaves during the 1850’s and reimbursed slave owners when their slaves died.
Aetna, Inc., the United States’ largest health insurer, apologized for selling policies in the 1850s that reimbursed slave owners for financial losses when the enslaved Africans they owned died.
“Aetna has long acknowledged that for several years shortly after its founding in 1853 that the company may have insured the lives of slaves,” said Aetna spokesman Fred Laberge in 2002. “We express our deep regret over any participation at all in this deplorable practice.”
10. CSX Railway used slave labor to construct portions of some U.S. rail lines under the political and legal system that was in place more than a century ago.
Two enslaved Africans who the company rented were identified as John Henry and Reuben. The record states, “they were to be returned clothed when they arrived to work for the company.”
Individual enslaved Africans cost up to $200 – the equivalent of $3,800 today – to rent for a season and CSX took full advantage.
11. Brown Brothers Harriman is the oldest and largest private investment bank and securities firm in the United States, founded in 1818. USA Today found that the New York merchant bank of James and William Brown, currently known as Brown Bros. Harriman owned hundreds of enslaved Africans and financed the cotton economy by lending millions to southern planters, merchants and cotton brokers.
12, Barclays, the British multinational banking and financial services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom has now conceded that companies it bought over the years may have been involved in the slave trade.
13. The Canadian National Railway Company is a Canadian Class I railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec that serves Canada and the midwestern and southern United States. The company also has a history in which it benefited from slavery. The Mobile & Ohio, now part of Canadian National, valued their slaves lost to the war and emancipation at $199,691 on record. That amount is currently worth $2.2 million.
14. According to reports, Fleet Boston Financial evolved from an earlier financial institution, Providence Bank, founded by John Brown who was a slave trader and owned ships used to transport enslaved Africans.
The bank financed Brown’s slave voyages and profited from them. Brown even reportedly helped charter what became Brown University.
15. Brooks Brothers
The suit retailer started their company in the 1800s by selling clothes for slaves to slave traders.
16. Norfolk Southern
Two companies (Mobile & Girard and the Central of Georgia) became part of Norfolk Southern. Mobile & Girard paid slave owners $180 to rent their slaves to the railroad for a year. The Central of Georgia owned several slaves.
17. Bank of America
Bank of America found that two of its predecessor banks (Boatman Savings Institution and Southern Bank of St. Louis) had ties to slavery and another predecessor (Bank of Metropolis) accepted slaves as collateral on loans.
18. U.S.A. Today
U.S.A. Today reported that its parent company (E.W. Scripps and Gannett) was linked to the slave trade.
19. Wachovia
Two institutions that became part of Wachovia (Georgia Railroad and Banking Company and the Bank of Charleston) owned or accepted slaves as collateral on mortgaged property or loans.
USA Today reported that Wachovia Corporation (now owned by Wells Fargo) has apologized for its ties to slavery after disclosing that two of its historical predecessors owned enslaved Africans and accepted them as payment.
“On behalf of Wachovia Corporation, I apologize to all Americans, and especially to African-Americans and people of African descent,” said Ken Thompson, Wachovia chairman and chief executive officer, in the statement released late Wednesday. “We are deeply saddened by these findings.”
20. AIG
AIG purchased American General Financial which owns U.S. Life Insurance Company. AIG found documentation that U.S. Life insured the lives of slaves.
USA Today reported that New York-based AIG completed the purchase of American General Financial Group, a Houston-based insurer that owns U.S. Life Insurance Company. A U.S. Life policy on an enslaved African living in Kentucky was reprinted in a 1935 article about slave insurance in The American Conservationist magazine.
AIG says it has “found documentation indicating” U.S. Life insured enslaved Africans.
21. JPMorgan Chase
JPMorgan Chase reported that between 1831 and 1865, two of its predecessor banks (Citizens Bank and Canal Bank in Louisiana) accepted approximately 13,000 slaves as loan collateral and seized approximately 1,250 slaves when plantation owners defaulted on their loans.
Sources: Atlanta Black Star
