New York-based Lehman Brothers has become the first contractor with the city of Chicago to acknowledge past ties to slavery under a law requiring the disclosure. In response to a Chicago City Council ordinance requiring companies to disclose if they ever profited from slavery, a Lehman affidavit says the company, founded by three brothers in Alabama in 1850, bought atleast one slave, and "may have personally owned other slaves." (Associated Press, 11/24)
http://news.findlaw.com/ap_stories/f/1310/11-24-2003/20031124154503_22.html