Thread by @WorthRises

Did you know that the 13th Amendment, celebrated for abolishing slavery, includes an exception for criminal punishment? Neither do 88% of Americans.

teenvogue.com/story/slavery-…

Worth Rises' @BiancaTylek explains in @TeenVogue. Help end slavery at endtheexception.com.

After the passage of the #13th, Southern and other states used ‘Black Codes’ to criminalize and re-enslave newly-freed Black folks — these were laws that prohibited Black people from owning land, moving freely, being unemployed, and more.
nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/b…

If you violated the Black Codes, you could be incarcerated and forced to labor through the brutal practice of “convict leasing,” in which governments leased recently freed, incarcerated Black people out to private businesses.

See what the South did there?

Somehow, “convict leasing” rivaled slavery in brutality w annual death rates of 16% to 25% across the South.

It afforded enslavers cheap labor that could be easily replaced when overworked and killed. As one said, “But these convicts: we don’t own ‘em. One dies, get another.”

Nevertheless, by the late 1800s, some Southern states were bringing in more than 70% of their revenue from “convict leasing.”

Eventually, “convict leasing” fell out of favor, but many states just turned to exploiting incarcerated labor themselves.
digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.…

For example, the nation's largest prison, Angola, was a plantation turned deadly prison labor camp. When LA, outlawed "convict leasing," it took control and returned it to a working farm, where today men (75% Black and 74% w life sentences) still do fieldwork for $0.02 per hour.

Across the US, incarcerated people are forced to labor under threat of punishment for little to no pay (avg $0.14 per hour). Punishment for refusing to work mimic those from antebellum slavery like solitary confinement (think “the hole”) and separation from family.

And some states even force incarcerated people into grueling fieldwork at a financial loss to the state. Why? Only “to confirm the proximity of slavery and trigger the trauma that runs through Black people’s veins.”

“Slavery, has always been about more than forced labor & wages. It’s about power & control — about establishing supremacy, forcing subordination, & degrading pride. And... relies on the recognition of one’s humanity — the ability to feel joy & peace & pain & fear — to do so.”

Knowledge is power. So, now that you know, what will you do? We have an opportunity to unravel the intimate relationship between our carceral system and slavery, but will we?

Join the movement to #EndTheException by taking action today.
endtheexception.com