The Companies Built On The Backs Of Our Enslaved Ancestors

Via Wikimedia Commons

PushBlack
August 21, 2019

Tiffany & Co.

Iconic high-end jewelry retailer Tiffany & Co. would have never been built into an empire if its founder, Charles Tiffany, hadn’t made his fortune in the 1800s in the cotton industry, built on the backs of enslaved people.

New York Life

Like Aetna and many other insurance companies, New York Life got its start by selling life insurance for enslaved people to their owners - thus directly profiting off the slave trade.

JP Morgan Chase

Now one of the largest banks in America, JP Morgan Chase literally owned slaves, because it accepted them as collateral and took ownership in the case of default. 

In 2005, Chase apologized and offered $5 million in scholarships to Black students as reparations - but given the bank makes almost $10 BILLION a year in profit, the gesture is insulting.

CSX Transportation

One of the largest railroad corporations in the Southeast and Eastern U.S., CSX’s railroad tracks were built by slave labor - as were most railroad tracks throughout America.

USA Today

Countless newspaper brands still publishing today, like USA Today, once published ads for the buying and selling of slaves, which were a huge portion of the newspapers’ profits.

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