“The Federal Writers’ Project narratives provide an all-too-rare link to our past.”

Morgan Jerkins tells the story of Henrietta Wood — a woman sold back into slavery after being freed — who in 1878 was awarded $2,500, the largest known sum of restitution for enslavement by a United States court.

A deeply upsetting object lesson in how the arcane details of inheritance and property law are used to strip black Americans of their land.

The story of slavery in New York, the messy path to abolition, and a shameful history with which America has yet to come to terms.

For reasons that no one can quite explain, a wealthy white New Orleans man has spent the last fifteen years and more than $8 million of his personal fortune building the first museum in America dedicated to telling the story of slavery.

An investigation of the Thai fishing industry, which has been built on enslaving migrant workers:

The price captains pay for these men is a extremely low even by historical standards. According to the anti-trafficking activist Kevin Bales, slaves cost 95% less than they did at the height of the 19th-century slave trade – meaning that they are not regarded as investments for important cash crops such as cotton or sugar, as they were historically, but as disposable commodities.

For the migrants who believed Thailand would bring them opportunity, the reality of being sent out to sea is devastating.

“They told me I was going to work in a pineapple factory,” recalls Kyaw, a broad-shouldered 21-year-old from rural Burma. “But when I saw the boats, I realised I’d been sold … I was so depressed, I wanted to die.”

Dan P. Lee on the director and Oscar contender:

I’d seen 12 Years the night before, at the huge cineplex in downtown L.A. My friend sobbed quietly through a good portion of it. At least one black couple left midway. As we walked out of the ­theater, no one seemed to be speaking; breaking the ice, one stranger next to me said, “Well, that was intense,” which made us all laugh anxiously. As we stared at the Figueroa clips, I told McQueen how much I admired the film, and how it made me think about nihilism. He was having none of this. We made our way quickly to the courtyard outside the museum, where a lively conversation ensued.

He stammered and stuttered, organizing his thoughts. “The world is perverse,” he conceded; it is “chaotic.” Still: “Within that, one is always trying to find that calm, that focus. That’s why we have societies. It drives some sort of structure within that sort of environment.” Slavery was not proof of senselessness. It was about “money and power obviously, and within that you get human suffering.” But goodness overwhelms. “The only reason I’m here talking to you,” he said, “is because my family held on to that love, even if it sounds corny.”