Hey, you— the internalized idea that slavery ended shortly after the Civil War is FALSE. Slavery existed well into the 20th century just under a different name. In effect, slavery continued into the 20th century, under a system known as convict leasing.

“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, EXCEPT as a PUNISHMENT FOR CRIME whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” Remember that bit from the 13th amendment?

Well, slave owners profiting from free labor weren’t going to NOT profit so southern states immediately updated their criminal code to bypass the 13th & created “pig laws” with the express intent of continuing to profit from free Black labor by incarcerating Black people.

“Pig Laws” unfairly penalized poor African Americans for crimes such as spitting on sidewalks, vagrancy statutes made it a crime to be unemployed. Laws penalized anyone attempting to leave a job before an advance had been worked off.

Mississippi specifically lowered the threshold of grand larceny to 10 and added “stealing “any hog, pig, shoat, cow, calf, yearling, steer, bull, sheep, lamb, goat or kid, of the value of one dollar or more” would be punished as grand larceny.”

These laws were blatantly racist in its targeting of cattle and swine theft, because such stealing was stereotypically considered “Negro” behavior, and whites owned the preponderance of cattle and swine. Trivial offenses were treated as felonies, with harsher sentences and fines.

Slave patrol forces previously tasked with catching runaway slaves became Police functioning in a way analogous to the earlier slave patrols, enforcing segregation and the disenfranchisement of freed slaves through Black codes and Pig laws.

Convict leasing, in which private enterprises leased felony prisoners from the state for a fee, primarily targeted black men, women and youth. “Convicts” were auctioned at county courthouses or rented in groups.

Convict leasing involved holding people against their will, separating them from their families, working them from sunup to sundown, beating and whipping them regularly, & severely punishing them for minor infractions.

It also involved sexual violence against incarcerated women and, often, the permanent loss of freedom: Many leased prisoners were held for life, and mortality rates were high. In 1873 in Alabama, 25 percent of black leased convicts died. Convict leasing occurred until 1928.

Though convict leasing was legally abolished in 1928, at least 37 states still permit contracting prison labor out to private companies and pig laws stayed part of the South’s criminal code for decades.

So chill on the “slavery ended 150ish years ago” bs. It was just rebranded.

History has been white washed— learn so we can stop gaslighting Black people. Article for education attached. https://eji.org/news/history-racial-injustice-convict-leasing/

Another thing— the US government’s promise to give “40 acres and a mule” to freed slaves. Andrew Johnson overturned it in 1865 and returned the land to the planters— the very people who declared war on the US. We have a very long history of “moving on” from White Supremacy.