Today in 1994: black chattel slavery exposed in Arab North Africa — it’s still happening and going strong
The video below shows how the Arabs of the north African country of Libya are capturing and enslaving black Africans from countries to the south.
CNN has footage of a slave auction where a black man was sold for $400.
Today is the anniversary of the launching of a movement to free black slaves of North Africa.
On this date in 1994, 26 years ago, Dr. Charles Jacobs and his Mauritanian Muslim partner, Mohamed Athié, published a groundbreaking op-ed in The New York Times, “Bought and Sold,” documenting the Arab and Muslim trade in black flesh in Sudan and Mauritania. This was perhaps the very first time an English-speaking African had written or co-written a high-profile exposé of modern-day black slavery in the Arab world.
As a result of a 10-year campaign in America which garnered support from across the political spectrum — from the NAACP and black legislators like Eleanor Holmes Norton and Donald Payne, from white and black churches, from Pat Robertson’s 700 Club, from major liberal figures like Barney Frank, Nat Hentoff, and the great Tom Lantos — pressure was put on President George W. Bush who in 2002 heroically forced the Islamist government of Sudan to allow the black, mostly Christian population in the south to form their own nation: South Sudan, the world’s newest country.
Today, there are black slaves serving Arab/Muslim masters in five African countries: Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Nigeria, and Sudan. See the reports here.
We need to rekindle the movement to free black slaves.
The American Anti-Slavery Group, a special project of APT, needs your help. Please donate here.