Black women were among the most profitable assets during slavery in the United States. In 1808, when the transatlantic slave trade was legally ended, about a million enslaved people were living in the U.S. Sixty or so years later, when the Emancipation Proclamation announced the end of slavery, the Black population had risen to 4.5 million souls. This significant growth was partly due to the continuation of the slave trade between the U.S., Latin America and the Caribbean. But it was also a direct result of the rapes, forced pregnancies, prostitution and sex trafficking of Black women.

These particular horrific acts did not stop with the end of slavery in the United States; they live on in today’s sex trade. And in order to understand the system of prostitution, we must understand what it means for Black women.

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