By Maya A. Weisinger

Jim Stewart and Mollie Beebe ‘13 are no strangers to the confines of time and the chaos of overlapping and interconnecting schedules, deadlines, and commitments. Though, emerging from the fast life that those at Mac seem to be so familiar with, they have managed to put a greater cause first: the development of a new Mac-centralized org, MacAntislavery. For almost a year now, Beebe and Stewart, along with the contributions of Lia Morone ‘13, Kate Ibur ‘15, and myself have been setting the stage and all the preparations to launch this organization, which aims to ignite the Macalester community to take action in the national movement against modern-day slavery. Stewart has spent the last nine months organizing a widespread assembly called Historians Against Slavery, a national movement that connects 40 colleges and universities nationally in efforts to reorganize the discourse surrounding modern-day slavery. This calls for the combined support and commitment of students, professors, and community members all over the United States and the world. Stewart, a retired professor from the Macalester History Dept., sees Mac as the perfect climate for establishing a homebase for this growing movement. “Know no campus boundaries” is the org’s motto, emphasizing important values of the group itself: it is independent from financial restraints of Macalester College and it welcomes all members and encourages dedicated involvement from anyone in the community. The main goal of the org is to develop a team of professors who will start to incorporate service-learning and action project components based in anti-slavery initiatives on and off campus into their curriculum. “With multiculturalism and internationalism being important pillars of our school’s foundation, we want to apply those values to create a pillar of anti-slavery advocacy,” said Beebe, a junior with a strong passion to transform. MacAntislavery has kicked off what they plan on being a dedicated and important asset to the Macalester community. This initiative starts with the discussion of sex-trafficking in the Twin Cities. MacAntislavery is holding their inaugural event next Thursday, an evening that will be graced by the nationally acclaimed speaker, Joy Friedman. Friedman is the Women’s Programs Director at Breaking Free, an organization combating human trafficking in the Twin Cities. I volunteer weekly at the organization, which is located only a few minutes from Mac’s campus. I act as a link between MacAntislavery and Breaking Free, reinforcing MacAntislavery’s desire to make more partnerships like this in order to expand the knowledge and support of anti-slavery issues in our domestic and international communities.