Free Republic

One of the WNBA’s most prominent voices wants her league to consider the place of women in America at the birth of the country before agreeing to wear a celebratory jersey patch. Aces forward Brianna Turner, the players association treasurer, balked at the idea that WNBA All-Stars should wear the “USA 250” patch on their jerseys that other professional sports leagues have adopted to celebrate America’s upcoming 250th birthday.

Pope Leo XIV made a historic apology on Monday for the Holy See's role in legitimizing slavery and for having failed to condemn it for centuries, calling the Vatican's record a "wound in Christian memory." Past popes have apologized for Christians' involvement in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. But no pope had ever publicly acknowledged, much less apologized for, the role that past popes played in giving European sovereigns explicit authority to subjugate and enslave "infidels." ... In 1452, for example, Pope Nicholas V issued the papal bull Dum Diversas, which gave the Portuguese king and his successors the right "to...

The left-wing Labour Party government in Britain has refused to confirm that it is not using slave labour in its publicly owned green energy project, despite having passed a law last year committing to do so. The push in the UK to eliminate the use of fossil fuels and replace them with supposedly cleaner forms of energy may be coming with a hefty human toll, with it being unclear if the state-funded Great British Energy (GBE) project is using forced labour in places like China to prop up its so-called renewable sector. Following pressure from campaigners, after initially baulking at...

Yes, the United States effectively inherited the existing institution of slavery in the territory acquired through the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 from France (which had briefly reacquired it from Spain in 1800). The U.S. did not introduce slavery there as a new practice; it was already well-established under prior colonial rule, and the transfer preserved the property rights of slaveholders. Historical Context of Slavery in the Louisiana Territory * French origins: France introduced chattel slavery to the Louisiana colony starting in the early 1700s, importing enslaved Africans (beginning around 1710) to support plantation agriculture, alongside some raids on Native American...

Despite being urged by President Trump to do away with the filibuster, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) is adamantly against doing it. "Look,' Trump said, "the filibuster is not a law. It is not in the Constitution. It is just a long standing tradition that helped Democrats resist efforts to end slavery. Right now it is being used to prevent efforts to reduce vote fraud. Neither of these purposes for which the filibuster has been or is being used is good for the country." Thune rebutted Trump's argument by pointing out "we Senators all respect each other. The filibuster...

Summary: During the period of the Revolution, slavery was much closer to being banned in America than most people realize.

One of the great strengths of Abraham Lincoln was his ability to take complicated concepts and boil them down into an easily digestible argument that even his most basic audience could understand. This was an invaluable resource for Lincoln whether addressing a jury or a gathering of potential voters and he used it frequently throughout his life. One of the best examples of this unique talent in his own handwriting comes to us from a document entitled “Pro-slavery Theology” here in the collections of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. Undated, though likely written in October of 1858 during...

The papyrus, which contains 133 lines of preserved text, is the longest Greek papyrus ever uncovered in the Judean Desert, although for decades it had been misclassified as a Nabatean text and practically lost in the archives of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA)...Upon translation, the team that Cotton Paltiel put together realized the papyrus preserves an incredible snapshot into the Roman legal system and life between two Jewish revolts against the Romans: the Diaspora Revolt (c. 115–117 CE) and the Bar-Kokhba Revolt (c. 132–136 CE). The papyrus, which pertains to a legal case brought before a Roman court, contains the...

Full Grok question: "If the United States must be blamed for slavery before the U.S. did not even exist in the year 1776, don't Americans get the privilege of taking the credit for abolitionism that existed prior to 1776 since Britain did not do that?" --- Yes, by that exact same logic of retroactive national attribution, Americans (specifically, the colonists who formed the United States) get full credit for the early abolitionist movements that predated 1776—movements Britain itself did not pursue or enact at the time, and which Britain actively hindered in the colonies. The premise is straightforward and consistent:...

This week, the UN General Assembly voted to declare the transatlantic African slave trade as "the gravest crime against humanity." UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said "the transatlantic slave trade was a crime against humanity that struck at the core of personhood, broke up families and devastated communities." Ghana's President John Mahama praised the declaration, saying "we came together in solemn solidarity to affirm truth and pursue a route to healing and reparations. The adoption of this resolution serves as a safeguard against forgetting." US ambassador to the UN Dan Negrea objected "history is replete with crimes against humanity--genocides, massacres, torture,...

Thu 9 Jan 2003 Pygmies being eaten by rebels in Congo's ongoing war, UN reveals JAMES ASTILL IN NAIROBI REBEL soldiers are massacring and eating pygmies in the dense forests of north-east Congo, UN investigators said yesterday. A UN team has spent the past week investigating allegations of cannibalism in remote Ituri province, where fresh fighting between several rebel groups has displaced around 150,000 people in the past month. Many of the displaced tell of rebel fighters capturing and butchering pygmies across the front-line, said Manoddje Mounoubai, a spokesman for the UN cease-fire monitoring mission in Congo yesterday. "The UN...

The United Nations chief condemned the U.S.-Israeli airstrikes on Iran on Saturday and called for an immediate return to negotiations “to pull the region, and our world, back from the brink.” Secretary-General António Guterres told an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council that everything must be done to prevent further escalation. “The alternative,” he warned, “is a potential wider conflict with grave consequences for civilians and regional stability.” Guterres said the U.S. and Israeli airstrikes violated international law, including the U.N. Charter. He also condemned Iran’s retaliatory attacks for violating the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan,...

The Shadow of Arab Supremacy: Racism and the (roughly) 5 Million Victims of Sudan's Endless ConflictsSudan, Africa's third-largest country, has been scarred by decades of violence rooted in deep-seated ethnic divisions, where Arab identity has been weaponized as a tool of supremacy and exclusion. Since the mid-20th century, conflicts pitting the Arab-dominated north against non-Arab populations in the south and west have claimed roughly 5 million lives, driven by policies of Arabization, racial hierarchies, and genocidal campaigns. This Arab racism—manifested in derogatory slurs like "abd" (slave) for Black Africans, favoritism toward Arab tribes, and state-sponsored militias targeting non-Arabs—has fueled mass...

Jihadists are murdering, raping, torturing, kidnapping, enslaving, and, in some instances, burning people alive — across Africa, and now in Syria. Local jihadist organizations go by different names, but the ideology that drives them is the same: Every one of them deeply believes that Allah wants him to wipe the world clean of the kuffar (infidels). More than 16.2 million Christians in Sub-Saharan Africa have been driven from their homes by jihadi violence and conflict, reports the human rights organization Open Doors. Women and girls are abducted, forced into "marriage," forced to convert to Islam, raped, and subjected to forced...

The UN General Assembly on Wednesday designated the transatlantic African slave trade as "the gravest crime against humanity" despite opposition by the United States and some European countries. In a move advocates hailed as a step towards healing and possible reparations, the resolution was adopted to applause by a vote of 123 in favour, three against and 52 abstentions. The United States, Israel and Argentina opposed the measure while Britain and EU member states abstained. Ghana's President John Mahama, one of the African Union's most vocal supporters of slavery reparations, was at the United Nations headquarters in New York to...

The Roman ideology of slavery is not racialized. It's not like the Romans think that the Greeks or the Germans are like some fundamentally separate kind of human that justifies their exploitation. The Roman ideology of slavery is really rooted in the law of property and status. So they think that slaves are people who've been conquered and rather than killed, they've been spared and they've been sold into the condition of being somebody else's property. And this seems to mentally explain to them where their slave system comes from and why it's justifiable. It's sort of like disturbing in...

Taliban “supreme leader” Hibatullah Akhundzada recently approved a novel criminal code, multiple outlets reported this week, that dramatically expands the legal ability for men to physically abuse women and children and provides for the creation of a formal “slave” class in the country. The Taliban is a radical Islamist terror organization that currently operates as the uncontested government of Afghanistan. The Taliban returned to power on August 15, 2021, following former President Joe Biden’s decision to extend the 20-year-old Afghan War beyond the deadline of May 15 of that year that President Donald Trump had previously agreed to. The Taliban’s...

“The Real History of Slavery” by Matt Walsh (Dropped Feb 18, 2026 – 1.5–2 hours of straight fire) 🔥 THE MAIN RED PILL (in one sentence) Slavery wasn’t America’s “unique sin.” It was humanity’s default setting for thousands of years — every race, every continent did it on a massive scale. America got the tiny scraps… then helped end it. 📊 THE NUMBERS THAT BLOW UP THE LIE • Africans shipped across the Atlantic: ~12.5 million • Only 3% (≈ 472,000) ever landed in what became the USA • Most went to Brazil (5.4 million) and Caribbean sugar hellholes 🩸...

Kenyans were lured to Russia by job promises, then forcibly conscripted into its army for Ukraine under death threats, made to sign military contracts. In Ukraine, these recruits faced apocalyptic combat, drone attacks, severe injuries, and death, labelled 'cannon fodder' due to Russia's high casualties. A Kenyan recruitment agency employee faces human trafficking charges; hundreds of Kenyans sent to fight highlight Russia's exploitation of African economic desperation.