Tragically, slavery did not end with the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 nor with the end of the War in 1865. During the period of Reconstruction, when federal law protected the rights of freed slaves, racial violence was constrained. Upon the withdrawal of Federal troops after 1876, however, many white Southerners blamed former slaves for the harsh economic conditions in the region.From 1877 until well after World War II, Southern states did little to protect blacks from forms of re-enslavement. Full rights for blacks would await passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Douglas Blackmon, an investigative reporter for the Wall Street Journal, won a 2009 Pulitzer Prize for “Slavery By Another Name: the Re-Enslavement of Black Americans From the Civil War to World War II.” In a meticulously researched and powerfully presented narrative Blackmon illuminates a history of which most of us are unaware.
In states of the Deep South young black men and women were rounded up for a variety of minor charges — gambling, vagrancy, relocating without permission — and sentenced to county jails. Sheriffs and other officials then sold or leased the prisoners to white owners of mines, saw-mills, farms and factories. Prisoners were transferred from jails to wretched quarters which were the American equivalent of Nazi concentration camps.
The inmates worked in dangerous circumstances during the day. Fed meager rations, they were chained in bunk-houses at night. Short sentences would be extended by tacking on days to pay for room and board. Minor infractions led to extended sentences, sometimes for years, if a prisoner could survive horrendous conditions. Beatings, torture, and even execution occurred at the hands of sadistic white guards. Victims had no legal redress. When they died, their bodies were tossed into unmarked graves. They simply disappeared...
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