This is pretty alarming. If you have seen the movie Cool Hand Luke, this won’t be a total surprise – but up until 1928, the State of Alabama would arrest black men unable to afford a lawyer and ship them off to farms, railroads and coal mines to work in forced labor. Originally a cost saving measure, eventually the state turned renting prisoners to businesses into a revenue source.
90% of the leased prisoners were black. Whipping prisoners was widespread.
Prison labor is still very common, not just in the South, but also in the North. This is viewed as retribution for crimes. Granted, todays laborers are better cared but hard labor sentences still continue to this day.
http://returntonow.net/2016/06/13/prison-labor-is-the-new-american-slavery/
In TX and LA the hard labor consists of “making big rocks smaller” but in many states up North it consists of actual production of goods, be it license plates or tens of different commodities.
The difference is in Alabama, the prisoners were turned over to the full time custody of a for profit business, often for only a misdemeanor charge.
This is not true today. When I grew up my best friend was Black. This was in the late 50’s… The Black community was one of the best of the citizens in our town. Their families were strong and in tact. They had good businesses. The schools were the best and everyone graduated with a good education. After THE GREAT SOCIETY everything changed. It was downhill from there.
I am not excusing indentured servitude, but some of these prisoners learned a trade and were able to be employed when they left prison. Some welfare recipients could use this today. Have you seen the video of some of these “welfare kings” waiting in line at a NYC welfare office and doing push-ups on the sidewalk while they wait?
Yes, you are.