The
convict lease system was a way to provide cheap labor for those that
formerly used slave labor after the civil war ended slavery. I was
surprised to learn of its existence. It is not well covered in U.S.
history. As many as 800,000 black citizens were forced to be
convict-lease-workers as a consequence of unjust sentences for a
variety of sometimes non-felony charges. With as high of a mortality
rate as 50% in lease-labor positions the sentences were blatant
violations of just punishment.
In
the reconstruction south there was a reorganization required socially
as well as reconstruction of southern infrastructure without slave
labor. Since so much of the ante-bellum south had slave labor as an
integral part of their economic system its sudden disappearance
caused a great shock to the system.
Instead
of going too far into an historical analysis of the adjustments
required for the economy of the post-war south I will just point
out the obvious (after watching the video), that local law
enforcement used their power to arrest and convict to obtain a prison
labor force of convicts that could be leased to capitalists and
former slavers for the same work that slaves did.
The
video pointed out that the industrialization of the post-war south
was accomplished with what effectively was slave labor doing
much of the heavy labor. John T. Milner was cited as a
particular industrialist-racist who exploited slave labor to help
coal mining and railroad building etc.
Because
convict labor of this sort existed until 1923 some assume that
black convicts today in the third millennium represent a
continuum of oppression for purposes of putting down black males.
That is an exceedingly superficial view of history even though there
are still racists (of any race) in the south and elsewhere.
