Dr. CarmenThompson of Portland State University discusses how the exploitation of African labor through transatlantic and internal slave trading led to the development of an early capitalist Europe; bolstering it and ultimately the United States into world superpowers.

Dr. Carmen Thompson is an Oregon Native and a professor of African American history and Black Studies at Portland State University and at Portland Community College. Dr. Thompson holds a Master's degree in African American Studies from Columbia University in New York and a PhD in U.S. History from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Thompson's research interests include the history of slavery and the slave trade in the early America and Pre-colonial West Africa, early African American history, race and racism in America, and the Great Migration.