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THREAD-"@SenateMajLdr Mitch McConnell was born about 40 miles from his great-great-grandfathers’ Alabama cotton farms, worked by slaves a 100 years before." courier-journal.com/story/news/pol… via @courierjournal #ReparationsNow
"Like so many long-standing Southern white families, McConnell's forebearers built their wealth with free slave labor and cheap land. Two of his great-great-grandfathers owned more than a dozen slaves, census records reviewed by the USA TODAY Network show.
"The Kentucky Republican has known of his family's slave-owning past since at least 1994, when he wrote a letter to a Limestone County judge requesting information about his great-great-grandfather James McConnell, a slave owner, and the settlement of his ancestor's estate.
"But his 2016 memoir contains no mention that the 'colorful McConnells' he wrote about owned slaves, NBC reported. As a child during segregation, McConnell lived on the white side of Athens, where black residents were only allowed to visit for work and were paid very low wages.
"The senator’s family history could be a case study in the way many whites built lasting wealth in part by exploiting the labor of enslaved African Americans." marketwatch.com/story/black-mi…
