Antoinette Harrell facts for kids

Antoinette Harrell (born around 1960) is an American historian, a person who studies family history (a genealogist), and a civil rights activist. She is famous for her work on how African Americans were treated after slavery ended, especially about a system called peonage and sharecropping in the southern United States. This system often kept people in conditions similar to slavery.

What Does Antoinette Harrell Do?

Antoinette Harrell spends a lot of time tracing the family trees of African American families in the southern United States. After slavery, many laws called Black Codes were created. These laws made it hard for African Americans to be truly free and often kept them under the control of white people. Harrell's research shows that these conditions were very much like the slavery that existed before.

How She Started Her Research

Harrell started looking into her own family's history as enslaved people around 1994 in Louisiana. As she learned more, she began giving talks about what she found. One day, a woman named Mae Louise Miller told Harrell her amazing story. Mae Louise Miller said she had been held in a situation like slavery in Mississippi until very recently.

Sharing Important Stories

Mae Louise Miller's story became well-known because Harrell helped share it. Harrell was the executive producer for a short movie called The Untold Story: Slavery in the 20th Century (2009). This film highlighted stories like Mae Louise Miller's. Harrell's research shows that some people were still trapped in a system called debt bondage (where they had to work to pay off a debt they could never escape) even into the 1970s. One example was a family held on a modern-day farm in Killona, Louisiana.

How She Finds Information

As a family historian, Harrell uses several ways to find out about these stories:

• She talks to people alive today who are descendants of those who lived through these debt bondage systems.
• She looks at old documents like property records (deeds) and census information.
• She searches through records in local libraries and archives.
• She even checks records at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

Fighting for Justice

Antoinette Harrell has also been involved in important lawsuits. These lawsuits were about the history of slavery and forced debt bondage for African Americans. For example, she was part of a class action suit (a lawsuit brought by a group of people) against big companies. These companies were accused of making money from slavery in the past, either by insuring enslaved people or transporting them. Some of these companies included Aetna Insurance, CSX Railroad, and Lloyd's of London.

Sharing Her Discoveries

Harrell has collected many important materials, like photographs and recorded stories from people. These are kept safe at Southeastern Louisiana University. Her research is also stored at the Amistad Research Center at Tulane University in New Orleans.

She has shared her findings in many ways:

• She has written books and articles for newspapers in Louisiana, like The Drum and Jozef Syndicate La.
• She had a local TV show called Knowing Your Family History.
• She hosts a weekly online discussion called Nurturing Our Roots.
• She has even hosted "Youth Genealogy Camps." At these camps, students learn how to research their own family histories using the same methods Harrell uses.