African-American workers under the U.S. slave system.

For four centuries, millions of African people were forcibly taken from their homelands and brought to the Americas. They and their descendants were made to work their entire lives for no pay for wealthy landowners and businesses. They were bought and sold as though they were property. From the beginning, these workers rebelled, escaped and organized. Many rebellions were suppressed by the owners and the government. Freedom was finally won during the Civil War. Their descendants still resist a system of discrimination meant to keep them as a source of cheap labor.

Artwork based on photograph of plantation workers on a United States plantation under the world's most extensive slavery system.