Well, you have to remember
that we live under a tremendous weight of slavery now.
And this isn't black history we're talking about,
this is our national history.
It's my history, it's your history.
People have been lynched, slaves.
You went to the army and weren't respected.
You had to sit in the back of a bus.
You need federal legislation to get you into a school
to get an education.
All of these things.
So when you see Robert E. Lee on a column 80 feet tall,
the man who wanted to retain slavery,
it offends you.
You got two sides,
and blacks are screaming prejudice to the white side,
and the white side is looking and saying:
"Why don't they get over it, why can't they get over it?"
And the blacks don't understand
that the whites don't know what the "it" is,
what the "i-t" is.
We're trying somehow here to define the "it."
And unless you know what the "it" is,
don't ask the question:
"Why can't they get over it."
When they leave, be sure that they toll that bell,
once for the slave wherever there's a bell.
"No sir, I can't read, write.
When I was brought up, if my boss man catch me
with a pencil or paper,
it was twenty-five lashes," said John McDonald.
Over the last sixteen years,
we have been working on the Whitney Plantation.
This plantation was built in 1790.
The plantation was settled by Ambrose Hydel.
And this property was available for sale.
For the first year, I just wrapped everything in plastic,
because it was only a real estate investment for me.
But it was very shocking to me
that I did not know about slavery.
I knew slaves were here, of course.
Had no idea what a commodity they were
and how they were treated as a commodity.
I had no idea of how deprived they were,
not by force of circumstance,
but by deliberate planning.
The sheriff of the parish or the head of the militia
would have something like this
to lock up runaway slaves until the master comes,
and claims them, and pays the fees.
For feeding and watering,
they always refer to those slaves as animals.
And even the runaway slaves,
they used the name, "marron."
"Marron" is from "cimarron,"
and "cimarron" is a wild pig.
This was part of slave control.
My name is Ibrahima Seck.
I met John Cummings in 2000,
and he decided to hire me to be the director of research
on this project.
The fact of going into the archives
and digging all those names,
and taking them back to life,
anybody who comes here will know that
Abdu from Senegal was a slave here.
He died in 1836.
You don't just teach slavery.
These people have backgrounds.
They came from Africa.
But also, you have to know that these people
came naked or half naked.
But they didn't need a suitcase to put their culture inside.
When you say blues, jazz, rock'n'roll,
they know it all over the country and they liked it.
It is rooted in slavery.
People need to understand
what happened on these plantations.
It is not just a way of putting the gate off on someone.
No, we don't need that.
We need to understand today
why we have so many problems in America.
Why are so many people are in jail?
Why is there so much poverty?
Black people are being shot and killed like game.
All that was rooted in slavery,
and if you don't understand the source of the problem
how can you solve it?
What people have to realize is that
it was a bunch of people like me who started this mess,
and they started slavery,
and they dealt in slaves.
Why would it be a surprise
if some white kid came along as a cheerleader
and was trying to do something that would correct
what his ancestors did?
So I thought that I personally
would no longer be satisfied living in ignorance.
And also, that I would try my best to present the facts
of slavery to all of the people I could find,
so that everyone would understand how strong the deck
was stacked against the Africans here.
I spent 16 years so far,
and we're north of eight million dollars now.
We're not finished.