On Freedom Road: The Roots of U.S. Exploitation of Immigrant Labor - Slavery and Peonage

Over the next two episodes pilgrimage with us on Freedom Road Podcast as we stand on the land where whips cracked backs to bleed more work from black and brown bodies. Stand with us in a literal valley of dry bones—a mass grave filled with the bodies of men and boys swept up in the post-antebellum terror of peonage. Sit with us as we speak with a descendant of America’s Bracero program and faith leaders pushing back against the exploitation of asylum seekers in America’s detention system today.

Host, Lisa Sharon Harper, and Sandy Ovalle (Immigration Campaign Manager at Sojourners) are on pilgrimage from the Whitney Plantation in Louisiana to a mass grave in Sugar Land outside Houston, Texas to the Alamo in San Antonio to the borderlands of McAllen, Texas where they cross the border into Mexico.

This episode features guests: 

Ashley Rogers, Executive Director of Whitney Plantation

Dr. Ibrahima Seck, Director of Research of Whitney Plantation

Reginald Moore, Founder of the Sugar Land Convict Leasing and Labor ProjectLiz Peterson, Board Member of the Sugar Land Convict Leasing and Labor Project

Suzzette Montgomery, Communications Director of the Sugar Land Convict Leasing and Labor Project

Click here to find out how you can join us on a Freedom Road Pilgrimage.(Hyperlink to: https://freedomroad.us/what-we-do/freedom-road-pilgrimages/ )

Join us next month for the second half of our pilgrimage into the fruits of American exploitation of immigrant labor.