Why would anyone have weddings at plantations considering their dark history?

@BabyLonia

Believe it or not, yes. 13 years ago, on a trip back from Florida, we passed through Alabama and Mississippi. I literally saw "Black Americans" picking cotton, in a rual area, as we passed by on the highway. A passing thought of mine as I saw this was: What if slavery never ended here and they don't know they are free?"

@BabyLonia Yes. And in many cases the same families own them and are still profiting from them. Tours, some converted to B&Bs, hotels.

It’s been estimated that if that money, including property taxes, were collected it could be used as reparations for the descendants of those who provided free labor for generations.

Which is why that will never happen. 😞

@calicuz @bijouxbroussard i can kinda understand it if it was a non-profit living museum....or one where the funds went back into tge communities that they harmed.

@BabyLonia That, too, would be a fair option no one involved would agree to.

@BabyLonia Y’know, for the longest time I wasn’t that concerned about reparations, until I did a bit of research. Reparations for the newly-freed slave families (and there was a much more manageable number of them then) right after the Emancipation Proclamation, was proposed in a field order by General Sherman, and the money was set aside.

But under President Andrew Johnson, (a Confederate sympathizer) the money was handed over to, of all people, some of the largest former slaveowners to compensate them for their "loss of property" when slavery was abolished. 🤬

@BabyLonia

Yes, money toward educating others would be ideal.