Some historians told me 200 million Blacks died during slavery. The smallest number I got from anybody was 60 million. There were travel accounts of people who were in the Congo—that’s a wide river—saying, ‘We could not get the boat through the river, it was choked with bodies.’ That’s like a logjam. A lot of people died. Half of them died in those ships. Slave trade was like cocaine is now—even though it was against the law, that didn’t stop anybody. Imagine getting $1,000 for a human being. That’s a lot of money. There are fortunes in this country that were made that way.
(via deliciouskaek)