Book Review: Slavery by Another Name
By Donald R. Barbera
A large portion of white America and a small segment of Blacks like to think that the days of slavery are far in the past; they fervently wish it to be so, otherwise, it provokes discomfort and stirs hidden guilt between both races. Douglas Blackmon’s Pulitzer Prize winning book, “Slavery by Another Name,” is a provocative look at a piece of American history few talk of and even fewer know about.
For those that believe the United States entered a post racial era with the election Barack Obama as the first African American president of the United States, Blackmon’s book reveals some uncomfortable truths regarding black and white relationships, especially concerning racism and slavery.
Blackmon, a Wall Street Journal bureau chief, pulls the covers off one of the most repulsive chapters in American history—convict leasing; or, as his subtitle indicates: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II. Blackmon’s narrative focuses on Alabama where leased prisoners worked the coalmines under dangerous and brutal conditions. Other industries using slave labor included railroad, mining, farming, and logging operations. The book makes it clear that Southern states moved to re-enslave blacks immediately after the Emancipation Proclamation became law, January 1, 1863.
The book makes it clear that nearly all the convicts were black. Independent research shows that Southern prison populations suddenly shifted from more than 70% white to nearly 90% black. In addition, prison populations also increased thanks to the number of blacks siphoned into the system. In Georgia, there was a tenfold increase in prison populations during a four-decade period (1868–1908).
Slavery by Another Name is a distressing and disturbing story that painstakingly investigates post-antebellum involuntary servitude, including convict leasing, debt slavery and peonage, which were the most common forms of re-enslavement. Using a corrupt and dysfunctional legal system, Southern whites used the law to re-introduce slave to the South. Blackmon’s research shows how the South used laws designed specifically to intimidate blacks that resulted in tens of thousands of African Americans arrest. Arrest was just the first step to slavery as jailed black men were loaded down with unpayable fines and even charged with the cost for their own arrest.
Although the 13th Amendment abolished slavery, it was allowable as punishment for a crime. “And within that loophole, it became a crime in the South to be unemployed, to leave one job for another one, to sell cotton after sundown, to speak too loudly in the company of white women.” A variety of trumped-up charges were used to keep the flow of black prisoner high in order to lease them to the owners of factories, farms and mines as slave laborers. As before, slaves received no pay for their work, yet entire states, counties and individuals made money off the re-enslavement of blacks. With no means to pay these "debts," prisoners were sold as forced laborers to coal mines, lumber camps, brickyards, railroads, quarries, and farm plantations. Thousands of other African Americans were simply seized and compelled into years of involuntary servitude. Armies of "free" black men labored without compensation, were repeatedly bought and sold, and forced through beatings and physical torture to do the bidding of white masters for decades after the official abolition of American slavery. In states using the convict lease system, revenue from the program contributed to 372% of the costs of prison administration and was extremely profitable for the government and business.
From the moment the Emancipation Proclamation became law, the South set about finding ways to circumvent it and keep blacks enslaved as free labor. Blackmon points out that there was little reaction from the north, so the South operated with quasi approbation of the US government. Although the practice eventually ended, it took another 80 years before it happened and only then because of the probability of the Axis Powers using it as propaganda. Until the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor, the government ignored the despicable practice.
Reading Blackmon's account is highly personal for me as my great-grandmother Sally was a slave and my grandmother, Donna, was the daughter of a Missouri slave owner that went on to become governor of the state. When my grandmother was a mature woman and her white sisters became ill in old age, they asked her to come "home" and take care of them. She declined.
It is difficult not to inject this personal note because my family and others that I grew up with knew of similar instances and are concerned that this sad chapter in American history is not known and that unawareness whether deliberate or not continues to underlie racial issues today such as white privilege and political racism.
Blackmon's research may also reveal the genesis of black distrust of the legal system and the police as the very people and system designed to protect and serve became convoluted and corrupt in imprisoning black men to make money. I didn't know about the coalmines in Alabama, but I constantly was admonished to stay away from the police and to beware whenever they were near just to be safe. Blackmon said he believes the extension of slavery during those years helps explain why African-Americans made so little economic progress between emancipation and the civil rights movement.
Slavery by Another Name is also the title of a 90-minute documentary film (based on the book) that aired on PBS in February 2012. As always, the book is much better than the movie, but it is no one's fault. The depth and breadth of Blackmon's research cannot be depicted on television without turning it into an epic effort. The clear-headed story offers a microscopic view of a little-known crime against African Americans, and the legacy of racism that still infects American principles.