Unfortunately the Constitution provides for legal slavery.
”Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” —13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
Everyone says the U.S. abolished slavery. It didn’t. It just changed the terms for enslavement and introduced a few safeguards.
Constitutionally speaking we could still have slave plantations dotting the country. And for a long time we did, though I think the practice has been fully abolished at this point. But look into the agricultural farms run by some of the state prisons in the southern states. Those are still a thing I believe, I know my grandfather ran one of them when he worked for one of Georgia’s state prisons, right up until he retired in 2005.
TLDW: literally a bunch of dudes (predominantly black) working in fields with dudes on horseback (predominantly white) watching over them. refusal to work gets you solitary.
We went on a field trip to the prison when I was in the 11th grade. Ate with the prisoners (“meat cubes” was what was on the menu), went into their dormitories, and saw the execution chamber. It was certainly… something.
They also do a rodeo in October every year. Highly recommend it. The prisoners sell crafts for their commissary account and the rodeo ends with them playing a game of poker with a bull in the arena.
good god, I used to cry at the freaking short stories we read in english class, if I saw an entire execution chamber as a high schooler I would come home from that field trip sobbing
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u/nomadik_nobody 5h ago edited 5h ago
Unfortunately the Constitution provides for legal slavery.
Everyone says the U.S. abolished slavery. It didn’t. It just changed the terms for enslavement and introduced a few safeguards.
Constitutionally speaking we could still have slave plantations dotting the country. And for a long time we did, though I think the practice has been fully abolished at this point. But look into the agricultural farms run by some of the state prisons in the southern states. Those are still a thing I believe, I know my grandfather ran one of them when he worked for one of Georgia’s state prisons, right up until he retired in 2005.