Antoinette Harrell

Much of Harrell's work involves tracing the lineage of African-American families in the southern United States, where they were often subject to local and state laws, known as Black Codes, that made it possible for whites to retain control over them, often in conditions that were reminiscent of those during the existence of chattel slavery. Harrell had been active in local genealogical research in Louisiana since around 1994, when she began researching her own family's history as slaves. She began giving lectures on the subject, and during one event was approached by a woman who alleged that she had been enslaved up until 1963 in Mississippi. According to testimony gathered by Harrell, conditions like this persisted through the 20th century, with some people remaining trapped in debt bondage through the 1970s, a notable instance being a family held on a modern-day plantation in Killona, Louisiana. As a family historian, Harrell conducts this research by interviewing living descendants and families of people who were subjected to these 20th-century debt bondage systems, as well as by reviewing deeds, census information, and records from local archives and libraries and even those from the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

Antoinette Harrell (born c. 1960) is an American historian, genealogist, and civil rights activist. She is known for her research on the post-slavery peonage of African-American sharecroppers in the southern United States.