Slavery | featured news

Mississippi has officially joined the rest of the nation in ratifying the 13th Amendment that abolished slavery, officials say.

Brazil's slavery victims are promised work and find themselves toiling in brutal conditions for little or no pay in the Amazon. After months of chopping down trees in the forest without pay and living on rice, beans and dirty water, Gil Dasio Meirelles decided he had to escape from the remote clearing in the middle of the vast Brazilian Amazon.

Can killer whales sue SeaWorld for enslavement? A lawsuit filed Wednesday by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and other "next friends" of five SeaWorld killer whales takes that novel legal approach.

While an estimated 10,000 women are victims of human trafficking in Mexico's capital, there were only 40 investigations of the crime and three convictions in the city last year, according to a report issued this week.

Virginia's proclamation of Confederate History Month without any reference to slavery was unacceptable, President Obama said in an interview broadcast Friday.

President Obama, speaking today from the pulpit of a church where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. sometimes spoke, called on the congregation to rally around the spirit that had helped their ancestors pursue a long road to freedom.