Atlanta's bricks could be worth $13 billion. The Black men who made them didn't earn a cent.

Some Atlanta bricks still carry the fingerprints of the people, mostly Black men and boys, who made them — workers forced into grueling labor they were never paid for to rebuild the city after the Civil War. At the height of the convict leasing system, the Chattahoochee Brick Company used incarcerated laborers to produce about 200,000 bricks daily. Researchers with Fulton County’s Reparations Task Force estimate those unpaid wages could total up to $800 million before interest — and value the stolen labor at more than $13 billion today. As descendants push for a memorial at the historic Atlanta site, the AJC’s Najja Parker explored the company’s legacy and the fight to honor those who suffered there. Credits: AJC | Library of Congress | Daniel Varnado for the AJC | Atlanta History Center | National Museum of African American History | UGA Map and Government Information Library | Fulton County Reparations Task Force Harm Report | Archive Atlanta