June 11 - 18, 2021
Today's post covers the week of June 11-18, 2021. Slavery By Another Name This PBS documentary is adapted from Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Douglas A. Blackmon - Slavery By Another Name: The Re-enslavement of Black Americans From the Civil War to World War II . In the 80 years between the two wars, involuntary servitude persisted for Black Southerners. After Reconstruction fell apart in the 1870s, new laws criminalized everyday aspects of Black life. Prisons then leased Black convicts to mines, farms, and factories to provide inexpensive labor that boosted the Southern economy. The use of debt to extract labor, also known as peonage, along with state-sponsored prison labor (chain gangs performing labor on behalf of the state) replaced convict leasing to private industry until the 1940s. Just after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt issued Circular No. 3591, which directed federal prosecutors to build cases around involuntary servitude or slavery. The government pros