Slavery by Another Name

Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II by Douglas A. Blackmon

"From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Wall Street Journal bureau chief Blackmon gives a groundbreaking and disturbing account of a sordid chapter in American history—the lease (essentially the sale) of convicts to commercial interests between the end of the 19th century and well into the 20th.

Usually, the criminal offense was loosely defined vagrancy or even changing employers without permission. The initial sentence was brutal enough; the actual penalty, reserved almost exclusively for black men, was a form of slavery in one of hundreds of forced labor camps operated by state and county governments, large corporations, small time entrepreneurs and provincial farmers.

Into this history, Blackmon weaves the story of Green Cottenham, who was charged with riding a freight train without a ticket, in 1908 and was sentenced to three months of hard labor for Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad, a subsidiary of U.S. Steel. Cottenham's sentence was extended an additional three months and six days because he was unable to pay fines then leveraged on criminals.

Blackmon's book reveals in devastating detail the legal and commercial forces that created this neoslavery along with deeply moving and totally appalling personal testimonies of survivors. Every incident in this book is true, he writes; one wishes it were not so. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. "

[amazon]0385722702[/amazon]


This book won the 2009 Pulitzer prize for general non fiction.
The Pulitzer Prizes | Citation

In 1863, Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. Two years later, the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery and prohibited involuntary servitude. But as Douglas Blackmon shows in his powerful book, Slavery by Another Name, unfree labor did not disappear at the end of the Civil War. Instead, it took on a new, pernicious form.

Slavery by Another Name is a harrowing journey through the world of chain gangs, prisons, and forced labor in the South between the Civil War and the mid-twentieth century. Through painstaking research in obscure local archives and in court and company records, Blackmon uncovers an eye-opening story of collusion between public officials and business leaders who built their fortunes on the backs of unfree black laborers.

The system was simple—and pernicious. Blacks—mostly men—were arrested and convicted of minor crimes, on trumped up or even false charges. They were charged with “vagrancy,” which in the post-Civil War South, often meant moving from one place to another in search of work. They faced “bastardy” charges, for having a child out of wedlock. Or they were slapped with punitive fines and prison terms that were grossly out of proportion to the infractions they had committed. Once in jail, they were leased to lumber companies, mines and mills, turpentine farms and plantations. Some judges even let wealthy whites rent prisoners to do routine household chores.

More at: Firedoglake » FDL Book Salon Welcomes Douglas A. Blackmon, Slavery By Another Name

We've come a long way.
Now folks volunteer for the slavery of welfare and a lot of people seem to want to turn over their health care to the whims of some Masser in Washington.

Nonno said:

Into this history, Blackmon weaves the story of Green Cottenham, who was charged with riding a freight train without a ticket, in 1908 and was sentenced to three months of hard labor for Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad, a subsidiary of U.S. Steel. Cottenham's sentence was extended an additional three months and six days because he was unable to pay fines then leveraged on criminals.

Blackmon's book reveals in devastating detail the legal and commercial forces that created this neoslavery along with deeply moving and totally appalling personal testimonies of survivors. Every incident in this book is true, he writes; one wishes it were not so. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. "

[amazon]0385722702[/amazon]


This book won the 2009 Pulitzer prize for general non fiction.
The Pulitzer Prizes | Citation

Click to expand...

I'm assuming Cottenham was black?

And if so, were white people subject to the same laws and rules at the time?

Were other races sentenced to serve the railroads?

I know they want to make it a race thing, but was it?

May require further investigation other than reading this one particular book..