I shit you not.  There’s the screen grab; click on the thumbnail if you want it to be readable.

How fricking stupid are these people?  Okay, okay, I know; it’s WaPo.  Pretty damn stupid.  But still . . . . 

At least The New York Times had the sense to phrase its hed as "Sharpton Learns His Forebears Were Thurmonds’ Slaves."

But to say flatly, in 2007, that one person was "owned" by another?  Good freaking grief.  Yeah, I know that people traded money for persons in those days (still do, in some benighted parts of the world, including the U.S.).  I also know that those who give the money and get the persons consider said persons their property.  That doesn’t mean that they "own" them in any sense of the word that should be afforded any legitimacy.  And WaPo has no business lending its legitimacy (however tenuous that may be these days) to such a concept with that sort of phrasing. 

Now, if they wanted to say "illegally imprisoned," "held captive," "enslaved," "kidnapped," "committed an obscene and criminal act," etc., etc., then maybe we can talk.  "Owned"?  Not so much.