On the latest episode of the Millennial Politics podcast, we interview Dr. Michael Ralph, Professor at NYU and creator of the Treasury of Weary Souls.

The Treasury of Weary Souls is the world’s most comprehensive database of enslaved Africans who built America. Ralph and his team compiled more than 1,300 records of Life Insurance policies as a way to identify, track, and better understand the mechanics of slavery.

The Treasury of Weary Souls highlights the pivotal contributions of skilled slaves to the nation's most lucrative and most dangerous antebellum enterprises, with specific data points on the enslaved human's skill set, occupation, and which corporations were willing to write the policy.

Perhaps most striking, the database also contains fascinating points on financial firms who continue to profit from slave insurance policies today. While these corporations are not the same as they existed over 150 years ago, their legal corporation still exists (AIG, Aetna, New York Life Insurance).

We had the opportunity to sit down with Dr. Ralph for our first in-studio recording at ACME Hall Studios in Brooklyn.