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Slavery By Another Name Analysis

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Prior to watching the documentary Slavery by Another Name, if anyone would ask me when did slavery end, I would’ve replied that slavery ended with the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. All throughout my childhood education, that is what I was taught. I wasn’t aware of terms such as “convict leasing” that the documentary alluded to all throughout its running time. While I was watching this video, I began to reflect on everything I’d learn in my history classes up until this point. The main question that I couldn’t shy from was, how did I not learn about these horrific times in our history? Up until watching the documentary, I was never able to grasp why racial segregation still existed so many years after the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. …show more content…

As I alluded to earlier, I wasn’t aware of certain terms that came to fruition during this time period. A term that the documentary introduced me to is “convict leasing.” The documentary explained that convict leasing began because replacements were needed in the labor force, since blacks were no longer slaves and had been freed. In order to find replacements, the criminal justice system along with white business owners essentially worked together to convict and sentence blacks to petty offenses. The most discussed offense in the documentary was vagrancy. According to the documentary, vagrancy offenses were the result of unemployed blacks. Because they were unemployed, they were arrested and later on fined as being a vagrant. Since these blacks were unemployed, they typically didn’t have the necessary funds to payoff the fines, and so they were forced to work to payoff their debt. The language utilized in the 13th Amendment basically stated that convict leasing, or involuntary servitude was applicable in the punishment of a …show more content…

Even though slavery was abolished, informal forms of slavery was still taking place. Blacks were seen more as economic value than they were as a person. Freed men and women whom were guilty of no actual crimes were forced to work without compensation. Forms of punishment that the video referred to include: Whipping, flogged, placed in barracks, chased by bloodhounds, and even death. Until it was abolished, this was legal as long as debt was deemed un-payable. Convict leasing was abolished in Alabama in 1928, yet Franklin Roosevelt didn’t abolish all forms until December 1941.
Between the 1920s-1940s, the documentary stated that 4.8 million blacks in the south were apart of some form of involuntary servitude. On record, there were 9,000 known prisoners who died during this horrific time period. The same gruesome behavior that took place prior to slavery being abolished was still occurring, the south just looked for alternate ways to achieve the same results. Even though blacks may not necessarily be the focal point, there are multiple forms of slavery still occurring today. A primary example would be women being forced into prostitution to pay off

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The most powerful example of this is the pictures Perkinson put into the book is the picture of the man with a little girl on a horse. The caption under it says “Higher-ranking officers were assigned ‘houseboys’, usually African American trusties who would be used for cooking, cleaning, or even child care”(Perkinson,picture pg.2). The picture helps prove his point that the prison system was used like slavery to control african american because it has the african american prisoner working for his “master” aka his prison warden or prison guard for free. The second picture which is right under it shows prisoners all of which are African American working with some stone and axes. Underneath the picture the caption says “just as slaves built Texas’s first state capitol, leased convicts constructed its replacement”(Perkinson,picture pg.2).

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Worse than Slavery, by David Oshinsky, is a novel about post-Civil War America, and the life it gave free African Americans in Mississippi and other parts of the South. Oshinsky writes about the strict laws and corrupt criminal justice system blacks faced after they were freed, and while the contents of the book are not typically read about in history textbooks, it is important to understand what life was like for the freedman. Anyone interested in reading his book would profit from it. With the end of the Civil War came the destruction of the old system of slavery. Many white Southerner’s were outraged, but were forced to accept the newly freed blacks.

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The impressive documentary 13th by Ava DuVernay, leaves us with insight on how the history of slavery has transformed into our contemporary nation. From slavery to racial discrimination, Jim Crow laws to mass incarceration and police brutality, it appears as if slavery has disappeared ever since the 13th amendment went into effect and that everyone is treated equally. However, our eyes have been blinded by the fact that the term, “slavery,” has been redesigned into a set of metonymies. What comes as a surprise to many current generation viewers is that the 13th amendment provided a loophole, which allowed slavery to continue under one circumstance: one must be convicted. This small piece of exception has caused a series of prolonged crisis

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537 Words | 3 Pages

“Slavery by Another Name” is a documentary that proves that Black people’s suffering because of slavery was never ended with the Emancipation Proclamation, which was issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863. The Proclamation ordered to free all the slaves. After 1865, many African-Americans faced the brutal situation in which they were forced to do hard labor work. They tortured from both North and South. At that time, they were just free in documents, but not in real life.

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“The historical debate over slavery began where the propaganda war between abolitionists and apologists for slavery had ended. Condemnation of slavery as a moral evil and a system of ruthless exploitation was pitted against respect for slavery as an effective system for the adjustment of relations between a superior and an inferior race. ”2 This disillusion can be stopped by proper education of the history of slavery, the true history of slavery, not the pretty and happy version that some tend to

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The abolition of slavery in the United States was undoubtedly a monumental event in American history. However, while slaves were technically granted their freedom, they were not truly free. Despite being legally emancipated, former slaves faced numerous obstacles and injustices that impeded their full integration into society. This essay will argue that free slaves were not truly free because they did not have full voting rights nor jury rights, they were segregated, and they had limited employment opportunities.

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For decades, slavery in the United States was considered normal, and in particular, the South depended heavily upon slavery for its economy. Slavery previously existed in both the Northern and Southern parts of America, but in the very early 1800’s, attitudes changed in the Northern States toward

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In the 1700-1800’s, the use of African American slaves for backbreaking, unpaid work was at its prime. Despite the terrible conditions that slaves were forced to deal with, slave owners managed to convince themselves and others that it was not the abhorrent work it was thought to be. However, in the mid-1800’s, Northern and southern Americans were becoming more aware of the trauma that slaves were facing in the South. Soon, an abolitionist group began in protest, but still people doubted and questioned it.

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African Americans today have made considerable progress from the establishment of bondage. People, for example, Martin Luther lord Jr., Rosa Parks, and Booker T. Washington have made ready for African American to get the same equivalent rights as white Americans. Be that as it may, servitude significantly influences the ethics of African Americans and their qualities, the way they talk, eat, attitudes, and in general the african american society. these viewpoints can soley be followed back to the instituion of subjugation.

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For many African Americans during this time, that meant that you were freed as a slave only to be arrested and deemed a slave once again. How does this relate to mass or wrongful incarceration today? Well, what I'm trying to do is to create a timeline of how twisted the "judicial" system was and still is. I mention the confederacy because it is an accurate representation of how racist the roots of the United States are and also on a side note, how anti American the confederacy actually was. A concept that many do not seem to be aware of.

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When somebody doesn 't do the right they get hit with a whip till they do what is told. Slavery is nothing like doing chores for your parents it 's worse you can 't take a break until you are done you have to keep working until they tell you when your done, and you barely get paid for it. • B. Background information: There has been a lot of injustice in society in slavery like beating up up someone when they don 't do the right thing for the job. slavery isn 't there choice they have to do it for them not for

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739 Words | 3 Pages

In the South there were slave codes that were set into place which “forbade slaves to hold property, to leave their masters’ premises without permission, to be out after dark, to congregate with other slaves except at church, to carry firearms, to testify in court against white people, or to strike a white person even in self-defense”(Brinkley, 261). These slave codes pretty much stripped the slaves from their freedom and liberty from which they should have been granted since birth. For a slave not to be able to live a life and be free is very obscure in the life we live today. Life for a slave was very unjust due to the fact that if a slave was to be killed by a white then there was no crime but if a slave killed a white then the slave was to be put on the death penalty. As William Lloyd Garrison states in his article, “Every slave is a stolen man; every slaveholder is a man stealer” (Garrison) expresses the image that these men or women are being taken from their families and being sold into slavery as if they were something that is worthless and has no value to it besides making money for whites or doing hard

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807 Words | 4 Pages

By using this reference, it illustrated the severity of the alienation of blacks in the Southern United States. In 1619, a Dutch ship “introduced the first captured Africans to America, planting the seeds of a slavery system that evolved into a nightmare of abuse and cruelty that would ultimately divide the nation”. The Africans were not treated humanely, but were treated as workers with no rights. Originally, they were to work for poor white families for seven years and receive land and freedom in return. As the colonies prospered, the colonists did not want to give up their workers and in 1641, slavery was legalized.

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The United States has a very long history of prison labor. The 13th amendment abolished slavery in 1865, but made a loophole for prison labor. In the early to mid nineteenth century, prisoners were put to work in large-scale industrial factories. The convict lease system emerged in the Southern states after the formal abolition of plantation slavery in 1865. American states leased large blocks of prisoners to private companies, which forced prisoners to pick cotton, mine coal, and lay railroads.

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2830 Words | 12 Pages

Introduction: During the 1800’s, Slavery was an immense problem in the United States. Slaves were people who were harshly forced to work against their will and were often deprived of their basic human rights. Forced marriages, child soldiers, and servants were all considered part of enslaved workers. As a consequence to the abolition people found guilty were severely punished by the law.

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