FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

daily vice

How Slavery Survived in the South Long After the Civil War

VICE met up with Antoinette Harrell, a genealogist who tracks down cases of slavery and abusive labor practices that lasted into the 1960s.

Slavery might have ended on paper after the Civil War, but many white landowners did everything they could to exploit newly freed slaves well into the 20th century. Thousands of black laborers across the South were forced to work against their will as late as the 1960s—a new form of enslavement that went on in the shadows of rural America.

On this episode of DAILY VICE, we traveled to Louisiana to meet genealogist Antoinette Harrell, the "slavery detective of the South," who tracks down cases of modern-day slavery and abusive labor practices. They talk to a man whose family was held on a plantation against their will into the 1950s, and Antoinette explains how she uses decades-old records to uncover how slavery was perpetuated long after the Civil War ended.

Sign up for our newsletter to get the best of VICE delivered to your inbox daily.

Follow VICE on Twitter.