The Corporate Plantation

"The Corporate Plantation," a novel, intertwines two parallel stories. The epic equates the working conditions of the early slave plantations of the 1800s for American Negroes to the contemporary corporate working conditions of the Negroes in the twenty-first century. The illusion is that slavery or cruel plantation life for the Negro has run its course. It's over. It has ended. The unfortunate reality is that it has just morphed. It has changed its appearance and its address. It has moved from the cotton plantation to "The Corporate Plantation." The old southern plantations have moved into reinforced steel, concrete, glass and marble structures. The two stories converge and dramatically illustrate how little conditions have changed. The novel becomes rich fodder to support the dissection of corporate racism in America. The highly passionate and energetic spirit of "The Corporate Plantation," introduces a fifteen year old Negro slave girl, Mollie, who aspires to better her place in life by leaving the master's eighteenth century cotton plantation. Her desire to leave and to aspire is hampered by her master's brutal rape and birth of a baby, LII Josie. The saga is complicated by Mollie's unwanted, unloved child, Mollie's passion and determination to overcome her situation and the traumatic events she endures attempting to reach prosperity are relayed by her granddaughter, Mary Katherine. Mary Katherine finds herself in a similar situation three-hundred years later in the twenty-first century as she aspires to climb the corporate ladder. But, Mary Katherine's corporate middle manager, Grant Erickson, uses eighteenth century tactics to kill her spirit and hold her back also.