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#Post#: 16262--------------------------------------------------
Re: Emancipation in the US - did you know?
By: Susan Date: May 28, 2019, 7:11 pm
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What I was taught in school was that slavery ended with the
Civil War but that black people did have to fight for equal
civil rights. There were lessons on black people not being able
to ride busses, not being able to eat in the same places, etc,
but never anything about being arrested to serve as forced
labor. It was only very recently (2 months ago) that I learned
that the exception to not being able to be forced to work was
for prisoners and that in order to rebuild the South many black
people were imprisoned for minor or even unavoidable offenses
like ¨vagrancy¨ where they served on work gangs. (There are two
videos I have watched recently related to imprisonment and the
war on drugs. ¨The House I Live In¨ (through Amazon) and 13th
(
HTML https://www.netflix.com/title/80091741).
I have been using the movie ¨Gone with the Wind,¨ with one of
my teachers. This weekend there was a scene in it which had
increased meaning after learning this. After the war Scarlett
manages the milling business of her husband. There is a scene
which shows her negotiating ruthlessly with a man contracting
for the labor of one of these chain gangs. Another charachter
confronts her about the immorality of it and she insists that it
is cheaper higher the chain gang to work than to hire employees.
I think I saw the movie years ago but never really understood
it without understanding that this was just the way the South
tried to substitute for the loss of slaves-- these were not
hardened criminals-- just black people pressed into service to
rebuild the South.
If anyone else is an Amazon Prime member there is a Civil War
documentary series included there. My teacher and I watched the
first episode which goes through the roots and policies of
slavery that lead up to the Civil War. It was shocking to me to
hear some of what was said about the constitution of the
Confederacy (South) which described slavery not as a necessary
evil but as a positive good and something like ¨the natural and
good state of the races.¨ The fight for equal rights in the
South has been especially long and slow.
Has anyone else seen the movie ¨Greenbook?¨ It is based on a
true story of a black musician touring in the South during the
60´s.
HTML https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/news/2019/02/20/green-book-tourism-travelers-retracing-movies-route/2928243002/<br
/> That kind of stuff was taught to me in history during the 70´
s
and 80´s, but not the stuff about forced labor through
conviction of unjust laws that are preferentially prosecuted.
#Post#: 16269--------------------------------------------------
Re: Emancipation in the US - did you know?
By: SHL Date: May 28, 2019, 9:39 pm
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[quote author=Susan link=topic=1106.msg16262#msg16262
date=1559088694]
What I was taught in school was that slavery ended with the
Civil War but that black people did have to fight for equal
civil rights. There were lessons on black people not being able
to ride busses, not being able to eat in the same places, etc,
but never anything about being arrested to serve as forced
labor. It was only very recently (2 months ago) that I learned
that the exception to not being able to be forced to work was
for prisoners and that in order to rebuild the South many black
people were imprisoned for minor or even unavoidable offenses
like ¨vagrancy¨ where they served on work gangs. (There are two
videos I have watched recently related to imprisonment and the
war on drugs. ¨The House I Live In¨ (through Amazon) and 13th
(
HTML https://www.netflix.com/title/80091741).
I have been using the movie ¨Gone with the Wind,¨ with one of
my teachers. This weekend there was a scene in it which had
increased meaning after learning this. After the war Charlotte
manages the milling business of her husband. There is a scene
which shows her negotiating ruthlessly with a man contracting
for the labor of one of these chain gangs. Another charachter
confronts her about the immorality of it and she insists that it
is cheaper higher the chain gang to work than to hire employees.
I think I saw the movie years ago but never really understood
it without understanding that this was just the way the South
tried to substitute for the loss of slaves-- these were not
hardened criminals-- just black people pressed into service to
rebuild the South.
If anyone else is an Amazon Prime member there is a Civil War
documentary series included there. My teacher and I watched the
first episode which goes through the roots and policies of
slavery that lead up to the Civil War. It was shocking to me to
hear some of what was said about the constitution of the
Confederacy (South) which described slavery not as a necessary
evil but as a positive good and something like ¨the natural and
good state of the races.¨ The fight for equal rights in the
South has been especially long and slow.
Has anyone else seen the movie ¨Greenbook?¨ It is based on a
true story of a black musician touring in the South during the
60´s.
HTML https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/news/2019/02/20/green-book-tourism-travelers-retracing-movies-route/2928243002/<br
/> That kind of stuff was taught to me in history during the 70´
s
and 80´s, but not the stuff about forced labor through
conviction of unjust laws that are preferentially prosecuted.
[/quote]
Yes, Susan all that stuff about forced labor through
imprisonment for non-offenses (like vagrancy) was news to me too
until I looked into it, just recently, because it‘s not anything
anyone talks about or you learn in school. Like Alharacas‘
article mentioned, there was an ebb and flow to it. When they
needed the farm workers, then enforcement of these insane
vagrancy laws went up. When there was a surplus of labor, the
rates went down.
And then there were the laws prohibiting one land owner from
hiring workers working for another land owner, by offering
higher wages or something, all under threat of criminal sanction
(I suppose the concept of „stealing them away“ or something).
All an insane and immoral system.
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