Bren, I'm coming up on my 66th season in this damned country. When I was young, I saw the chain-gangs of Black men you referenced, working on the side of the roads in Charleston all the time. While my great-grandmother bought some of the plantation land upon which my family lived during slavery (I have the original deed where she paid the "master" $100 for 13 acres), which was passed down to my grandmother, when my grandfather left her for his "other" family, she too became a "Slavecropper whose 15 children all worked on a white man's farm for a pittance -- which she immediately collected at the end of the work day to help her keep HER farm afloat. She had a stand in front of her house from which she sold fresh vegetables, peanuts, watermelons, etc. to the white folk headed down to the beach. As the grandchildren grew up, all of us, along with her children our age (there were a few!) in SC eventually worked on the same white man's farm out on the island every summer as "Slavecroppers" as well, picking beans, cucumbers, squash, tomatoes, watermelons, okra -- you name it, we picked it (I know that's why I hate okra to this day, it itches your hands horribly when you pick it and I have no love for the sliminess after it's cooked)!!!

But because she said, " I picked too slow to make any real money," she made the stand my job during the summers we spent with her while my mother & father worked in the city on the Navy Base. I have been forever grateful for that first entrepreneurship lesson she taught me as a young girl!

I so appreciate your interest in history, inequality and injustices, young man! Keep bringing it to the table for all to share!!!