Slavery’s ghost haunts cotton gin factory’s transformation

By JAY REEVES
Associated Press

PRATTVILLE, Ala. (AP) — A construction project in Alabama demonstrates the difficulty of telling complicated U.S. history in 2022. What was once the world’s largest cotton gin factory is being renovated into apartments. Enslaved people were used to build the factory, which played a key role in the expansion of slavery before the Civil War. Some people in Prattville want their story told along with that of its founder, Daniel Pratt. But it’s hard to honor the past without stirring conservative opposition. A historian says relatively few commercial sites linked to slavery recognize that past, so the developers in Prattville have a chance to do something new.