Slavery

The Fort Myers Symphonic Mastersingers will premiere an extraordinary choral work titled “The Witness: Incidents of the War of the Rebellion.” The work was conceived by the choral group’s artistic director, Matthew Koller, and inspired by the memoir of his great-great, grandfather, James Waxler, about his time serving in the Union army during the American Civil War. The memoir’s message is as cogent today as it was when he wrote it in 1888.

In the 1980s, slave labor was used to mine “blood diamonds” in Africa. These brutal conditions have shifted to another coveted item, cobalt, a critical ingredient in rechargeable batteries.