Slavery Is Still Legal In the United States [View all]

[Nevilledog]

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Teen Vogue
@TeenVogue
"Texas still has incarcerated people picking cotton even at a net loss to the state."

This #OpEd calls for an end to the 13th Amendment's exception that allows for legalized slavery. @WorthRises

teenvogue.com
Slavery Is Still Legal In the United States
Thanks to a critical exception to the 13th Amendment.
10:27 AM · Feb 3, 2022

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/slavery-legal-us-13th-amendment


Visitors have described the drive up to the Louisiana State Penitentiary as a trip back in time. With men forced to labor in its fields, some still picking cotton, for as little as two cents an hour, the prison was — and is — a plantation.

If that shocks you, you’re not alone. Like most Americans, you probably missed the day in U.S. history class when the teacher explained that we abolished slavery — except as punishment for a crime. Or more likely, that lesson never happened.

A recent poll commissioned by Worth Rises revealed that 68% of Americans don’t know that there’s an exception in the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution — the amendment celebrated for abolishing slavery. Another 20% think there's an exception if the sitting president decides, as part of wartime efforts, or in the interest of public safety. Thankfully, these exceptions don’t exist, but slavery very much still does.

So, let’s revisit that history lesson.

Immediately following the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, Southern states and localities used this exception to pass Black Codes and other vagrancy laws to criminalize and re-enslave newly freed Black people. These laws prohibited Black people from moving freely, owning land, congregating, being unemployed, and more. Punishment often included incarceration and then forced labor through “convict leasing,” a brutal practice in which governments leased incarcerated people to private businesses.

*snip*

And before anyone gives me shit about the source: read the article & be thankful some of our younger Americans might be reading this instead of listening to Joe Rogan.