16 tons: "Modern-day US Slavery" in Jacksonville, Florida

I can't stand hearing organisations go on about modern-day slavery in some foreign country. The same organisations hire no (0) Black Americans and have zilch interest in the realities and legacies of Black enslavement we live with right here in the Americas - whether it's Jamaica, Mexico or the USA. Now today CNN's reporting on a private "farm labor camp" in Florida where they found homeless Black Americans lured, trapped, forced to work, then held in debt to the same "farm labor camp."

And here's basically the same thing reported by journalist Ronnie Greene in a three-part series in Aug-Sept 2003.

Florida farmhands reap a harvest of poverty, pain and exploitation, by Ronnie Greene, Miami Herald, Aug 2003

Almost 50 years ago Tennessee Ernie Ford sang "Sixteen Tons".

SIXTEEN TONS

Written by the late Merle Travis; born, Ebeneezer, Kentucky

Some people say a man is made out of mud
A poor man's made out of muscle and blood
Muscle and blood, skin and bones...
A mind that's weak and a back that's strong
_________________
Chorus
You load sixteen tons, and what do you get?
another day older and deeper in debt
St. Peter, don't you call me, 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store
__________________
I was born one mornin' and the sun didn't shine
I picked up my shovel and I walked to the mine
I loaded sixteen tons of number nine coal and
the straw boss said, 'well bless my soul!'
.....you loaded...

(Chorus)
__________________
I was born one mornin' it was drizzlin' rain
fightin' and trouble are my middle name
I was raised in a cane-brake by an old mama lion
can't no high-toned woman make me walk no line

(Chorus)
__________________
If you see me comin', better step aside
A lot of men didn't, a lot of men died
One fist of iron, the other of steel
If the right one don't get you, then the left one will

(Chorus)
__________________
You load sixteen tons, and what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
St. Peter don't you call me, 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store

'Sixteen Tons' ~ Elvis Presley Music