The new form of slavery has the same intent and purpose as the old: to rob us of our labor and to keep us powerless.

By: Joseph "Jazz" Hayden

THIS IS African History Month. For the past week, I have been watching and re-watching The Abolitionists, a two and a half-hour documentary on PBS. It covers the abolitionist movement from the early 19th century to the Reconstruction period.

Watching the dynamics of that struggle for the ending of slavery had me glued to the screen and taking notes. The chief players were William Lloyd Garrison, the publisher of the anti-slavery newspaper, The Liberator; Nat Turner, who led am 1831 slave rebellion that killed slave owners and freed slaves; Harriet Beecher Stowe, who wrote the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin; and Frederick Douglass, former slave, orator, publisher of the North Star and organizer. Oh, and the most prominent figure, Abraham Lincoln.

The Abolitionists is a historical documentary about the struggle to end slavery. The ending of the most brutal war in American history and the passage of the 13th Amendment were supposed to be the definitive ending of that period in American history. However, when I look back from the perspective of the present, I am confronted with the question: What has changed? I can't avoid the answer: Very little.

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