re: #245 HappyWarrior

If your brother was born in 1959, I have no doubt he saw people who were former slaves. I’m not sure when the last slave died but I imagine they died less than 50 years ago. I’m only 31 but I have a great grandparent born not even a decade after the war’s end.

Interesting. Slavery wasn’t legally abolished in this country until 1866 (Thirteenth Amendment). So if one counts infants born - even if technically - into slavery until the mid-1860s, the number of survivors (“ex-slaves”) will map to the expected distribution of centenarians/super-centenarians in that group. So probably the “last slave” died some time in the mid 1970s.
Seriously: not that much “past” at all.