Tag: convict leasing system

On Aug. 11, white supremacists rallied in Charlottesville, Virginia, against the removal of the statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee, It turned deadly. The Charlottesville events happened just a week before Aug. 19, the date of the planned mass rally in Washington, D.C., against mass imprisonment. This rally and the growing movement of which it is part are aimed at dismantling not merely symbols of past racism and slavery like Confederate monuments, but the 13th Amendment, which still authorizes slavery today and is directed predominantly against people of color.

On Aug. 19, 2017, Washington, D.C. will host a Millions for Prisoners Human Rights March to draw attention and national support to amend the 13th Amendment of the United States Constitution. The 13th Amendment has spawned various forms of penal slavery since its ratification such as the convict leasing system, the chain gang labor system, the prisoner agricultural workers system and the modern day prison slave sweatshops euphemistically called “correctional industries corporations.”