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Michael Ralph
Hi 
, I’m Dr. Michael Ralph
Debt, Slavery, Insurance & Incarceration.
Cameron Schrier Professor & Chair of Afro-American Studies at Howard University. External Professor, Santa Fe Institute.
Author of Before 13th.
Let’s Discuss
Expertise
Research Areas
Exploring the slave insurance market and how companies like Aetna, AIG, and New York Life profited from policies on enslaved people — revealing the financial architecture of American bondage.
Examining convict leasing and the contradictions of the Thirteenth Amendment — how the abolition of slavery gave rise to new forms of bondage through the American carceral state.
Integrating political science, economics, and history to understand how debt has shaped governance, sovereignty, and the lived experiences of communities across the African diaspora.
Investigating how forensic science and medical knowledge intersect with race, power, and the politics of identification in both historical and contemporary contexts.
ABOUT ME
Historical anthropologist exploring the intersections of debt, slavery, insurance, forensics, and incarceration.
In His Words
"Slave insurance was one of the earliest forms of industrial risk management, providing an important source of revenue for some of today's largest multinational insurance companies."
Dr. Michael Ralph
Foreign Policy — The Slave Insurance Market
”By the 1840s, the number of slaves insured in the South mirrored the number of free whites with life insurance in the North — and both kinds of policies could be issued by the same companies.”
Dr. Michael Ralph
Foreign Policy — The Slave Insurance Market
"The recent economic crisis, driven by credit default swaps, was not the first time new financial instruments, utilized by AIG and its peers, shaped the lives of U.S. workers. And it won't be the last."
Dr. Michael Ralph
Foreign Policy — The Slave Insurance Market
Affiliated Institutions
Academic Partners
Questions & Answers
Dr. Michael Ralph is Professor and Chair of Afro-American Studies at Howard University. His research integrates political science, economics, history, and medical anthropology through an explicit focus on debt, slavery, insurance, forensics, and incarceration. He holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Chicago.
You can reach Dr. Ralph via email at Michael.Ralph@howard.edu or through the contact form on this website. For media inquiries related to Before 13th, please contact HarperCollins publicity.
Before 13th is a full-color graphic novel exploring the friendship and feud between Ida B. Wells and Frederick Douglass. It offers new insights into slavery and incarceration through the lens of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and the history of convict leasing.
Yes. Dr. Ralph is available for lectures, keynotes, panel discussions, and academic conferences on topics including slavery, incarceration, insurance history, and the African diaspora. Please use the contact form to inquire about availability.