![]() ![]() Forced labor was not simply a consequence of committing a crime white leaders sought out black men and manufactured charges against them in order to ensure a constant supply of low cost labor for farms and mines. Charges were trumped up against African-Americans, they were always convicted, and either they'd be sentenced to labor (and contracted out) or an employer would pay the fine (which the person would never have) and in return acquire them as labor. ![]() Blackmon grimly recounts the establishment and entrenchment of the system. What I didn't know was that the South had effectively rebuilt slavery, but didn't call it that-through its system of convict and contract labor. I knew about companies that ensured their workers were always in debt to them. I knew that black people had lost any land they gained (but not how) and that landlords had abused tenants. I wasn't under any delusion that black people were at any fault for their situation in the US and in the South in particular. I did understand that after 1876, white Southerners systematically disenfranchised and oppressed African-Americans. My understanding of the post-Reconstruction period from high school history was somewhat hazy. ![]() I majored in history in college, but I studied very little American history. ![]()
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