The United States likes to present itself as the land of freedom, a nation that abolished slavery and stood on the side of liberty. Yet the truth is more complicated, and for millions of incarcerated Americans, particularly Black men and women, freedom remains an unfinished promise. The 13th Amendment, long celebrated as the end of chattel slavery, still contains an exception clause that has enabled slavery to persist under a new guise: prison labour. What was once the plantation has been transformed into the prison industrial complex, and exploitation continues with devastating consequences for Black communities across the country.

When the 13th Amendment was ratified in 1865, it was hailed as the end of an era of brutal human bondage. But hidden in the text is a loophole: slavery and involuntary servitude are prohibited, “except as punishment for a crime.” This clause was no accident. Southern lawmakers, enraged by emancipation and determined to preserve a cheap source of labour, weaponised this exception almost immediately.

Through Black Codes and other discriminatory laws, ordinary aspects of Black life-such as unemployment, loitering, or minor infractions-were criminalized. Thousands of freedmen were arrested and funnelled into convict leasing programs, where they were leased out to private businesses and farms under conditions often worse than slavery itself. The economic motive was clear: slavery had been “abolished,” but a legal and profitable substitute was created.

This strategy shifted the demographics of incarceration dramatically. Prisons that were once filled largely with white convicts quickly became majority Black, establishing a pattern that continues to this day. By transforming the........

© Blitz