WEBVTT

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(female narrator)
After the Civil War

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black Southerners
were no longer slaves

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but they were not yet free.

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(woman)
The sheriff could sell
free black people

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to corporations
and coal mines.

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(narrator)
For 80 years,
thousands of blacks were

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forced to labor
against their will.

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He said if I don't go to work,

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he'll put me
in the river down there.

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(narrator)
One of America's
most shameful chapters

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"Slavery by Another Name,"

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coming up next.

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[orchestra plays softly]

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(woman) Mr. President,
I have a brother

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about 14 years old.

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A man hired him from me
and I heard of him no more.

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He went and sold him
to McGrehan

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they've been workin' him
in prison for 12 months.

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I asked him to let me have him,
but he won't let him go.

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(male narrator)
For a period of nearly 80 years,

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between the Civil War
and World War II,

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black Southerners
were no longer slaves,

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but they were not yet free.

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In one of the most shameful
and little-known chapters

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of American history, generations
of black Southerners

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were forced to labor
against their will.

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(woman)
From almost the first moment,
white Southerners

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were responding to try
to put African Americans

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back into a position as close to
slavery as they possibly could.

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(man)
The Old South, and what was
quickly becoming the New South,

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could not proceed without the
work of African Americans.

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But if you had something
for free in the past,

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you don't necessarily
want to pay for it now.

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It was a straight, simple,
exploitative system.

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There was only power,
there was only force,

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and there was only brutality.

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What happened
in that period of time,

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was so much more terrible
than anything most Americans

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recognize or understand today.

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The depth of poverty, the
inability of African Americans

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to access
any of the mechanisms of
wealth achievement and growth.

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They're all rooted in this
terroristic kind of regime

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that existed in so many places.

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Their ability to have what
we call the American Dream,

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that is what has been stolen

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from black folks
all through the South.

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And that legacy has to be
understood so that people

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will be able to speak to it
and give our ancestors voice.

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My name is Sharon Malone

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and my family is originally
from Wilcox County, Alabama

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My father was born in 1893.

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As a child, I never knew why Dad
didn't share many of the stories

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growing up in the rural South.

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There was so little
that I actually knew

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about the generations beyond my
parents, and I realized, I said,

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"Why don't I know these stories,
and why don't I know

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"who those people are?"

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African Americans
are innately wired

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to want to know who we are.

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It's almost like being
an adopted child.

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We have no understanding of

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not only what we have endured,

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but what we have survived.

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(woman) ♪ Oh freedom ♪

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♪ Oh freedom ♪

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(narrator)
Freedom must have felt glorious
to those who'd never known it.

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With the end of the Civil War

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and the passage
of the Thirteenth Amendment,

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four million former slaves
could embark on new lives

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with no one in charge
but themselves.

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(woman) ♪ And go home
to my Lord ♪

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♪ And be free ♪

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(woman)
And what they desired more
than anything was independence.

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They wanted independence
from white owners,

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they wanted their own churches,
they wanted their own schools,

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they wanted freedom to move.

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(men and women)
♪ Oh freedom ♪

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(man) African Americans
after emancipation,

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are looking at the potential,

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not only to enjoy
and receive freedom,

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but to live it.

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They're deeply committed
to reaffirming marriage vows,

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they're deeply committed
to reconstituting families.

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♪ To my Lord ♪

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♪ And be free ♪

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(narrator)
Ezekiel Archey,
born into slavery,

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was six when freedom came.

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His mother moved the family,

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Zeke, his two brothers
and a sister

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from Georgia to Alabama,

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away from the old plantation
and toward a new future.

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(man)
African Americans were willing
to work very hard

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and exploit themselves in
the same way that immigrants

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who have come to this country
have exploited themselves

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and their families
with long workdays.

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They were willing to do that,

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but they wanted to own
their own land,

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they wanted to control those
hours,

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they wanted to be the ones
to decide.

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(narrator)
John Davis was born
a dozen years after the war.

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He grew up in freedom,
working hard

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on an Alabama farm
rented by his parents.

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(man)
There was a tremendous
motivation and desire

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to integrate
into American life.

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(narrator)
Green Cottenham, born in 1885,

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was also the son
of an Alabama farmer.

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He came of age
in a nation that was

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increasingly urban,
industrial and modern.

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(woman)
This is a photo
of George Cottenham,

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he's my great grandfather.

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He was actually
Green Cottenham's first cousin.

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How hopeful my Cottenham
ancestors must have been

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about bright futures
for their family.

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These were hardworking,
honest people.

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(narrator)
But freedom had come
at a tremendous cost.

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The war devastated the Southern
economy, which had supported

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one of the wealthiest
aristocracies in the world.

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(Douglas A. Blackmon)
The cotton economy was
in complete shambles.

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The fields had been burned

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and the cotton gins
had been destroyed.

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Equipment that was necessary

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for the production of cotton
didn't exist anymore.

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But also, the primary engine
of the cotton economy,

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that being the labor of slaves,
was lost.

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(James Grossman)
In the five major cotton states
of the deep South,

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nearly half of all capital,

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nearly half of all investment
was in human beings.

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So when those human beings
were confiscated,

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when the investment was
transferred in essence

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from slaveholders to
the people themselves that meant

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a huge loss of capital
to Southern slaveholders,

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to the people who controlled
the economy of the South.

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(narrator)
A tiny, slaveholding elite
had owned the majority

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of the region's
four million slaves.

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Among them was Lucinda Comer,
a widow.

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After the war,
she and her sons

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oversaw the family's enterprises
in cotton, lumber, and corn.

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The great-great-
granddaughter

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of B.B. Comer,

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who was the governor of Alabama,

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and the great-great niece
of J. W. Comer.

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The things that I heard about
the Comer men, especially

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B.B. Comer, were about
their entrepreneurial spirit

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and being self-made men, there
was never a fool or a coward

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it was said in the Comer family.

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(narrator)
Emancipation turned the former
slaveholding world upside down

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(Khalil Muhammad)
The simple reality of people
that they had once owned,

09:17.200 --> 09:20.700 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
now were entitled to the same
fruits of their labor,

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the same ability to look
a white person in the eye,

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a man or a woman, and to demand
equal respect,

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to be called by one's first
and last names, challenged

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everything to the bitter core
of white people's souls.

09:37.466 --> 09:41.633 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(James Grossman)
You have a group of people
who are accustomed

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to have people serve them.

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Now, suddenly, these people
are free, they own guns--

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you'd be as worried as hell,
because what you're worried

09:52.700 --> 09:56.300 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
is that people are going
to take revenge.

09:56.333 --> 09:58.333 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
You also are worried that people

09:58.366 --> 10:00.700 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
aren't going to do
any work anymore.

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(narrator)
Most of the South's

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8 million whites
had not owned slaves.

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Poverty was widespread,

10:07.900 --> 10:11.533 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
and about a third of whites
were illiterate.

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(man)
Those individuals
see blacks moving around,

10:14.466 --> 10:18.600 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
trying to get land,
trying to improve themselves,
as competitors.

10:18.633 --> 10:23.000 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
They see a zero sum gain, in
which they're going to lose

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the more that blacks gain.

10:24.833 --> 10:27.500 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
(narrator)
These whites aligned

10:27.533 --> 10:30.800 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
with leaders
of the former Confederacy,

10:30.833 --> 10:35.266 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
aided by President Andrew
Johnson, Lincoln's successor.

10:35.300 --> 10:39.733 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
They formed vigilante groups
to attack and intimidate blacks.

10:39.766 --> 10:43.466 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
The violence grew widespread.

10:43.500 --> 10:48.600 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
In the spring of 1866,
Congress intervened.

10:50.933 --> 10:54.100 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Over the objections
of the president,

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it launched an era known
as Radical Reconstruction.

10:58.133 --> 11:01.033 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
(Risa Goluboff) At the beginning
of Reconstruction,

11:01.066 --> 11:03.533 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
there was
a tremendous federal will

11:03.566 --> 11:06.466 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
to both bring the South
into submission,

11:06.500 --> 11:09.900 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
but also to protect the African
American Civil Rights.

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(narrator)
Passed in 1866,
the Fourteenth Amendment

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recognized the citizenship
of all freed people.

11:18.066 --> 11:21.800 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
In 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment
was passed,

11:21.833 --> 11:26.633 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
which upheld the right
of black men to vote.

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(Adam Green)
Reconstruction was an attempt
to create a country

11:30.366 --> 11:34.066 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
in which it would be possible
to have

11:34.100 --> 11:36.166 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
a biracial
and equal citizenship.

11:36.200 --> 11:39.633 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(Khalil Muhammad)
Reconstruction gave African
Americans, for the first time,

11:39.666 --> 11:42.766 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
across the South, the
opportunity to serve on juries,

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to be witnesses in trial,
to serve as judges.

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It also made possible
an entire generation

11:48.466 --> 11:50.833 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
of black politicians
across the South,

11:50.866 --> 11:53.300 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
almost as many as 1500 serving

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through the end
of the 19th century.

11:56.200 --> 11:59.800 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(narrator)
Reconstruction governments
in many parts of the South

11:59.833 --> 12:03.700 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
succeeded in passing
new social legislation

12:03.733 --> 12:08.233 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
creating the South's
first free public schools.

12:10.633 --> 12:12.433 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
(man) Hey-ya!

12:15.033 --> 12:20.033 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(narrator)
But white resistance to biracial
government in the South

12:20.066 --> 12:24.000 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
intensified, and national
political support began to wane.

12:24.033 --> 12:30.066 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
By 1874, voters had shifted the
balance of power in Congress,

12:30.100 --> 12:34.466 align:left position:10% line:71% size:80%
allowing for the South's return
to local control.

12:34.500 --> 12:37.566 align:left position:10% line:71% size:80%
 
(Mary Ellen Curtin)
There is no sustained

12:37.600 --> 12:41.100 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
federal presence
in the South really after 1874.

12:41.133 --> 12:43.633 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
What they come away with
is that a sense

12:43.666 --> 12:45.500 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
that this is
a really violent situation

12:45.533 --> 12:48.266 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
and that there's not much
we can do about it.

12:48.300 --> 12:52.200 align:left position:10% line:59% size:80%
And there's not much perhaps we
even should do about it.

12:52.233 --> 12:54.433 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(Adam Green)
African Americans
seeking freedom, could

12:54.466 --> 12:57.733 align:left position:12.5% line:83% size:77.5%
count on less and less help
from the federal government,

12:57.766 --> 13:00.033 align:left position:12.5% line:83% size:77.5%
less and less help from
sympathetic Northerners,

13:00.066 --> 13:04.400 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
and they could count on more
and more and more

13:04.433 --> 13:06.933 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
animosity and attack from
Southern whites.

13:06.966 --> 13:09.466 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
[horse whinnies]

13:09.500 --> 13:12.200 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
(man) Hee-ya!

13:15.666 --> 13:19.766 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(Douglas A. Blackmon)
I grew up in a black part
of Mississippi,

13:19.800 --> 13:23.433 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
and I went to schools that
were 60%, 75% black

13:23.466 --> 13:25.100 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
all through my childhood.

13:25.133 --> 13:26.833 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
That was in the 1970's.

13:26.866 --> 13:29.300 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
What I learned about
the Emancipation Proclamation

13:29.333 --> 13:32.133 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
was the most simplistic
version of it,

13:32.166 --> 13:34.566 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
that it brought
an end to slavery.

13:34.600 --> 13:38.366 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
I also was taught, as most
Americans were in some way,

13:38.400 --> 13:40.433 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
that the end of slavery

13:40.466 --> 13:42.500 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
unleashed this population
of people

13:42.533 --> 13:44.633 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
who were ill equipped
for freedom,

13:44.666 --> 13:47.766 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
and that was all offered up
in some respect

13:47.800 --> 13:50.200 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
as an explanation
for the repressive things

13:50.233 --> 13:52.666 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
that would have been done
to African Americans,

13:52.700 --> 13:55.133 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
even the repressive things
that I knew about.

13:55.166 --> 13:57.233 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
What I came to realize, was

13:57.266 --> 13:58.966 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
that that fundamentally
didn't happen.

14:06.033 --> 14:09.100 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
(narrator) With the end of
Reconstruction,

14:09.133 --> 14:11.766 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
the nature of both crime

14:11.800 --> 14:15.400 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
and punishment in the South
changed dramatically.

14:15.433 --> 14:20.200 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
In state after state,
and county after county,

14:20.233 --> 14:23.166 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
new laws targeted
African Americans

14:23.200 --> 14:27.133 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
and effectively criminalized
black life.

14:27.166 --> 14:32.733 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(Douglas A. Blackmon)
It was a crime in the South
for a farm worker

14:32.766 --> 14:35.266 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
to walk beside a railroad.

14:35.300 --> 14:38.733 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
It was a crime in the South
to speak loudly

14:38.766 --> 14:40.800 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
in the company of white women.

14:40.833 --> 14:43.233 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
It was a crime to sell

14:43.266 --> 14:45.600 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
the products of your farm
after dark.

14:45.633 --> 14:47.833 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
Anything from spitting
or drinking

14:47.866 --> 14:50.566 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
or being found to be

14:50.600 --> 14:54.100 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
drunk in public or loitering
in public spaces

14:54.133 --> 14:55.866 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
could result in confinement.

14:55.900 --> 14:59.800 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
So there was
an over exaggeration

14:59.833 --> 15:02.466 align:left position:12.5% line:89% size:77.5%
of African American criminality

15:02.500 --> 15:05.066 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
during this time period.

15:05.100 --> 15:07.966 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
It's not
to absolve all prisoners

15:08.000 --> 15:09.866 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
from having committed crimes,

15:09.900 --> 15:13.233 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
but there were many
trumped-up charges.

15:13.266 --> 15:18.466 align:left position:12.5% line:83% size:77.5%
One of the most infamous set of
laws to come out of this period

15:18.500 --> 15:21.833 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
were the Pig Laws, passed in
Mississippi, Georgia, Florida,

15:21.866 --> 15:24.800 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Alabama, enhancing penalties
for what had been previously

15:24.833 --> 15:29.633 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
misdemeanor offenses,
to now felony offenses.

15:29.666 --> 15:35.266 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(narrator)
In Mississippi, theft of a pig
worth as little as a dollar

15:35.300 --> 15:38.233 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
could mean five years in prison.

15:38.266 --> 15:41.900 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
In Tennessee,
hard labor might result

15:41.933 --> 15:45.533 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
from stealing
an eight-cent fence rail.

15:45.566 --> 15:50.633 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
But the most powerful, the most
damaging of all of these laws

15:50.666 --> 15:52.300 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
were the vagrancy statutes.

15:52.333 --> 15:55.533 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
In every Southern state,
you became a criminal if

15:55.566 --> 15:59.800 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
you could not prove at any given
moment that you were employed.

16:02.966 --> 16:07.700 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(narrator)
Under slavery, most black crime
was punished by slaveholders,

16:07.733 --> 16:10.566 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
leaving the courts
to discipline whites.

16:10.600 --> 16:14.666 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Now, only about ten percent
of those arrested were white.

16:14.700 --> 16:16.933 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
(Mary Ellen Curtin)
Now, what does this mean?

16:16.966 --> 16:18.600 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Does this mean
that white people

16:18.633 --> 16:20.600 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
are not committing crimes
in the South?

16:20.633 --> 16:22.766 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
We know that's not true.

16:22.800 --> 16:25.833 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
(narrator)
Southern states had a history

16:25.866 --> 16:28.033 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
of placing prisoners
with industries

16:28.066 --> 16:32.266 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
that would bear the cost of
guarding and housing them,

16:32.300 --> 16:34.100 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
in exchange for their labor.

16:34.133 --> 16:36.766 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Now states also began
to charge fees,

16:36.800 --> 16:40.133 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
renting prisoners
to companies by the month.

16:40.166 --> 16:42.466 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
The highest rates were

16:42.500 --> 16:45.800 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
for the strongest workers
and longest sentences.

16:45.833 --> 16:49.200 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
(Adam Green) When you
go to the 13th Amendment,

16:49.233 --> 16:52.966 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
one of the fascinating things
about the text of that amendment

16:53.000 --> 16:55.700 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
is that it says that slavery
is abolished,

16:55.733 --> 16:59.733 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
except in the case of a
punishment for a crime.

16:59.766 --> 17:04.433 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
And within that wiggle room,
what you see in it is that

17:04.466 --> 17:07.200 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
there's still the possibility
of extending slavery,

17:07.233 --> 17:09.966 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
as it were, by another name.

17:10.000 --> 17:14.533 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
[gunshots]

17:20.800 --> 17:24.033 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(man)
♪ When it's early
in the mornin' ♪

17:24.066 --> 17:27.366 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
♪ Baby when I rise a-well ah ♪

17:27.400 --> 17:31.200 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(narrator)
The system was known
as convict leasing.

17:31.233 --> 17:33.733 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
♪ When I rise a-well ah ♪

17:33.766 --> 17:36.600 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
♪ When it's early
in the mornin' ♪

17:36.633 --> 17:41.366 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(Mary Ellen Curtin)
It took time for the system
of convict leasing to develop.

17:41.400 --> 17:44.966 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
It took time for the state
to realize that prisoners,

17:45.000 --> 17:48.600 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
believe it or not, could be
a source of profit.

17:48.633 --> 17:52.200 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
Once that revenue
starts coming in,
they're pleasantly surprised.

17:52.233 --> 17:56.000 align:left position:12.5% line:83% size:77.5%
This is new revenue
we never had before.

17:56.033 --> 18:01.933 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(narrator)
The State of Alabama
earned $14,000

18:01.966 --> 18:06.766 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
in its first year
of convict leasing, 1874.

18:06.800 --> 18:13.400 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
By 1890, revenue was
$164,000,

18:13.433 --> 18:17.800 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
roughly $4.1 million today.

18:17.833 --> 18:20.000 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(man)
♪ Heard that my woman
done leave me ♪

18:20.033 --> 18:22.400 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
♪ Well oh well-ah well-ah ♪

18:22.433 --> 18:25.900 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(narrator)
By then, states
throughout the South

18:25.933 --> 18:30.033 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
and hundreds of counties
and cities were engaged

18:30.066 --> 18:34.500 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
in some form of leasing convicts
to private industry.

18:34.533 --> 18:38.200 align:left position:12.5% line:5% size:77.5%
(Khalil Muhammad) And it gave
tremendous discretionary power

18:38.233 --> 18:42.800 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
for the private owner, either
a landowner or a corporation

18:42.833 --> 18:46.933 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
or a coal mine, could be
any business concern

18:46.966 --> 18:50.466 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
to do what they wanted
with that African American.

18:51.700 --> 18:55.033 align:left position:10% line:65% size:80%
(man) We as convicts,

18:55.066 --> 18:58.600 align:left position:10% line:59% size:80%
is something like
a man drowning.

18:58.633 --> 19:05.933 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
We have been convicted of
felonies and because of that,

19:05.966 --> 19:10.900 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
we have lost
every friend on earth.

19:10.933 --> 19:15.033 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(narrator)
In 1884, a series
of remarkable letters

19:15.066 --> 19:18.233 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
was sent from
the Pratt Coal Mines

19:18.266 --> 19:21.400 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
to Alabama's
new inspector of prisons.

19:21.433 --> 19:27.766 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Their author was Ezekiel Archey,
now a 25-year-old convict.

19:27.800 --> 19:31.033 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
(man, as Ezekiel)
"All these years

19:31.066 --> 19:33.300 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
of how we suffered.

19:33.333 --> 19:37.133 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
We have looked death
in the face,

19:37.166 --> 19:41.600 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
worked hungry, thirsty,

19:41.633 --> 19:46.666 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
half-clothed and sore.

19:46.700 --> 19:51.066 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(narrator)
Archey was one of hundreds
of convicts now being worked

19:51.100 --> 19:54.633 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
in a growing network
of mines and factories

19:54.666 --> 19:59.400 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
around Alabama's new industrial
center, Birmingham.

20:02.166 --> 20:07.400 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Founded in 1871 and fed by
intersecting railway lines,

20:07.433 --> 20:10.366 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
Birmingham was poised to exploit

20:10.400 --> 20:13.833 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Alabama's rich underground
deposits of coal,

20:13.866 --> 20:18.966 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
limestone, and iron ore:
the ingredients of steel.

20:20.333 --> 20:24.100 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
This was the new
industrial South, envisioned

20:24.133 --> 20:30.533 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
just prior to the Civil War
by slaveholder John T. Milner.

20:33.400 --> 20:36.033 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
(Douglas A. Blackmon)
John T. Milner

20:36.066 --> 20:38.000 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
was a brilliant engineer,

20:38.033 --> 20:44.200 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
extraordinary businessman;
he was also a supreme racist

20:44.233 --> 20:47.233 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
and a despotic person.

20:47.266 --> 20:51.033 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(man)
Negro labor can be made
exceedingly profitable

20:51.066 --> 20:54.333 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
in manufacturing iron
and in rolling mills,

20:54.366 --> 20:57.200 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
provided there is an overseer,

20:57.233 --> 21:01.366 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
a Southern man
who knows how to manage Negroes.

21:01.400 --> 21:05.433 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(Douglas A. Blackmon)
He laid out some of the first
railroad lines

21:05.466 --> 21:07.133 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
that would run across Alabama.

21:07.166 --> 21:08.766 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
In many respects, he was

21:08.800 --> 21:10.733 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
the Father of Southern
Industrialization,

21:10.766 --> 21:12.766 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
particularly in
the deep, deep South.

21:12.800 --> 21:16.266 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
(narrator)
Milner's vision triggered

21:16.300 --> 21:19.800 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
decades of rapid
industrial growth.

21:19.833 --> 21:24.733 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
After emancipation,
industrialists replaced
slaves with convicts,

21:24.766 --> 21:27.300 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
acquiring thousands from state
and county governments

21:27.333 --> 21:32.333 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(Mary Ellen Curtin)
You can't drive free labor
the same way that you can

21:32.366 --> 21:36.000 align:left position:12.5% line:83% size:77.5%
force prisoners to mine
five tons of coal a day.

21:36.033 --> 21:38.566 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
And this is why people
like Milner

21:38.600 --> 21:40.766 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
wanted prisoners
in his coal mines.

21:40.800 --> 21:44.133 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
He saw them as
a great source of profit,

21:44.166 --> 21:47.466 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
and he didn't have to worry
about labor disputes.

21:51.166 --> 21:58.833 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(man)
We would leave the cells
around 3:00 a.m.,

21:58.866 --> 22:02.566 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
and return at 8:00 p.m.,

22:02.600 --> 22:09.633 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
going the distance of 3 miles
through rain or snow.

22:09.666 --> 22:12.300 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
(Mary Ellen Curtin)
To describe the conditions

22:12.333 --> 22:14.266 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
in coal mine at this time,

22:14.300 --> 22:16.933 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
and to say that they're
primitive is,

22:16.966 --> 22:18.566 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
you can't even imagine it.

22:18.600 --> 22:21.566 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
(Douglas A. Blackmon)
This is a place where for weeks

22:21.600 --> 22:24.566 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
or months at a time,
men might never see daylight.

22:24.600 --> 22:27.033 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
The mine was often filled
with standing water

22:27.066 --> 22:28.800 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
around their ankles
and their feet.

22:28.833 --> 22:31.800 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
They had to drink
from that water.

22:31.833 --> 22:34.766 align:left position:12.5% line:5% size:77.5%
Disease ran rampant
through these mines.

22:34.800 --> 22:38.666 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(Khalil Muhammad)
They were incredibly
dangerous places to work,

22:38.700 --> 22:41.700 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
being subjected to violent
explosions, poisonous gases

22:41.733 --> 22:45.566 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
that were released as coal fell
from the walls,

22:45.600 --> 22:48.600 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
In addition
to the falling coal itself.

22:48.633 --> 22:52.066 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Whippings, keeping
people chained up,

22:52.100 --> 22:55.000 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
brutal kinds
of physical torture,

22:55.033 --> 22:58.400 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
and mental abuse are the norm.

22:58.433 --> 23:03.233 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
A lot of the things that kept
people in control under slavery,

23:03.266 --> 23:05.633 align:left position:12.5% line:83% size:77.5%
are amplified under
this convict system.

23:05.666 --> 23:08.766 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Zeke Archey was one of
about 500 convicts

23:08.800 --> 23:13.133 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
at the Pratt Mines
near Birmingham,

23:13.166 --> 23:16.933 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
nearly half
the company's workforce.

23:16.966 --> 23:20.666 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
They were overseen
by J.W. Comer,

23:20.700 --> 23:23.833 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
the former slaveholder
whose enterprises

23:23.866 --> 23:26.266 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
now included convict mining.

23:26.300 --> 23:31.233 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
That Comer's a hard man.
I've seen him.

23:31.266 --> 23:34.933 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
I've seen him hit men,

23:34.966 --> 23:39.800 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
100 and 160 times,

23:39.833 --> 23:45.433 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
with a 10-pronged strap,

23:45.466 --> 23:49.200 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
then say they was not whipped.

23:49.233 --> 23:58.300 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(Cristina Comer)
When I learned about the
brutality of J. W. Comer,

23:58.333 --> 24:01.966 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
I um...well,

24:02.000 --> 24:05.500 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
I just started
weeping, and um,

24:05.533 --> 24:09.500 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
I actually didn't leave
my house for two days,

24:09.533 --> 24:14.433 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
'cause I was in such a state
of grief and shock.

24:14.466 --> 24:18.533 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
The stories that I heard
about all the Comer men

24:18.566 --> 24:22.266 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
when I was growing up,
were about self-made men.

24:22.300 --> 24:26.800 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
And so to learn about the ways

24:26.833 --> 24:29.633 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
that they weren't
really self-made,

24:29.666 --> 24:34.133 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
but were making themselves
on the backs and

24:34.166 --> 24:39.266 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
by the blood of other people,
specifically the blacks

24:39.300 --> 24:42.633 align:left position:12.5% line:89% size:77.5%
and the convict leasing system,

24:42.666 --> 24:46.033 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
definitely shattered
that image for me.

24:46.066 --> 24:51.833 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
He'd go off after
an escaped man,

24:51.866 --> 24:59.333 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
one day, and dig his grave
the same day.

24:59.366 --> 25:04.133 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(narrator)
Exposés of the convict
labor system described it

25:04.166 --> 25:06.233 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
as "...worse than slavery."

25:06.266 --> 25:09.900 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Slaves had been a significant
long-term investment.

25:09.933 --> 25:16.733 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
A convict could be rented for
as little as 9 dollars a month.

25:16.766 --> 25:21.200 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(Douglas A. Blackmon)
It was never in the economic
interest of a slave owner

25:21.233 --> 25:24.666 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
to kill his own slaves
or to abuse them so terribly

25:24.700 --> 25:26.300 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
that they couldn't work anymore.

25:26.333 --> 25:29.200 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
So their economic value
protected them in certain ways.

25:29.233 --> 25:30.833 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
After the Civil War,

25:30.866 --> 25:33.133 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
someone working
these kinds of forced laborers,

25:33.166 --> 25:38.566 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
would push them to the very
limits of human endurance.

25:38.600 --> 25:43.633 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
(man)
We are the men who do the work.

25:43.666 --> 25:46.533 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
Look at the white men--

25:46.566 --> 25:52.666 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
how many are cutting 5
or 4 ton coal per day?

25:52.700 --> 25:56.033 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
They are few.

25:56.066 --> 25:59.800 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(Adam Green)
Convict leasing was
a source of labor

25:59.833 --> 26:01.566 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
where you could realize

26:01.600 --> 26:04.866 align:left position:10% line:59% size:80%
the maximum return
at a minimum social cost.

26:04.900 --> 26:08.466 align:left position:10% line:59% size:80%
The feeding, of course,
was next to nothing,

26:08.500 --> 26:10.800 align:left position:10% line:65% size:80%
health was next to nothing.

26:10.833 --> 26:15.666 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(narrator)
Convict miners cost
as much as 50% to 80% less

26:15.700 --> 26:20.500 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
than free miners, and could be
worked 6 days a week.

26:20.533 --> 26:22.666 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
Their presence allowed companies

26:22.700 --> 26:25.300 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
to depress wages
and resist unions.

26:25.333 --> 26:29.000 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
(Douglas A. Blackmon)
When one could obtain

26:29.033 --> 26:32.266 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
black labor at almost no cost,

26:32.300 --> 26:36.966 align:left position:12.5% line:83% size:77.5%
the profits for that form
of business were enormous.

26:37.000 --> 26:40.700 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
(narrator)
In Florida, prisoners extracted

26:40.733 --> 26:44.466 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
gum and resin from tall pines

26:44.500 --> 26:47.600 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
and transformed it
into turpentine.

26:47.633 --> 26:51.633 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
In Georgia, they hauled wet clay
from riverbanks,

26:51.666 --> 26:55.633 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
molding it into the millions
of bricks needed

26:55.666 --> 26:58.100 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
for new buildings and homes.

26:58.133 --> 27:02.966 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
From Texas to Louisiana,
convicts forced their way

27:03.000 --> 27:05.900 align:left position:12.5% line:89% size:77.5%
through acres of virgin forest,

27:05.933 --> 27:08.933 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
harvesting timber
and building railroads

27:08.966 --> 27:12.466 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
In all,
more than 15,000 prisoners

27:12.500 --> 27:16.633 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
worked in Southern industries
in 1886,

27:16.666 --> 27:20.800 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
and that number
was rising quickly.

27:23.500 --> 27:29.066 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
In many labor camps, as many
as a third of male convicts

27:29.100 --> 27:31.466 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
were boys younger than 16.

27:34.800 --> 27:39.166 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Girls and women were
also forced into labor.

27:39.200 --> 27:43.100 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Over 90% of convict laborers
in Georgia

27:43.133 --> 27:45.100 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
were African American men.

27:45.133 --> 27:49.533 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
The next highest percentage
would obviously be white men,

27:49.566 --> 27:53.000 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
but African American women
were also utilized

27:53.033 --> 27:55.500 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
in these various tasks.

27:55.533 --> 27:59.966 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
In manual labor, black women
are working in brickyards,

28:00.000 --> 28:04.933 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
in turpentine camps, in mining
camps, farms, in lumberyards.

28:04.966 --> 28:08.966 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(Khalil Muhammad)
Convict leasing becomes
a new form

28:09.000 --> 28:12.500 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
of economic development
in the South,

28:12.533 --> 28:16.466 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
and a ubiquitous form of
punishment for Southerners

28:16.500 --> 28:19.966 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
as the criminal justice system
expanded itself.

28:20.000 --> 28:22.600 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
And sweeps would take place
all through out the South,

28:22.633 --> 28:24.733 align:left position:12.5% line:89% size:77.5%
whether it was for a dice game,

28:24.766 --> 28:26.466 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
whether it was
for an altercation,

28:26.500 --> 28:28.533 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
whether it was for
being mouthy or uppity.

28:28.566 --> 28:32.933 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(Douglas A. Blackmon)
The record of thousands
upon thousands of people

28:32.966 --> 28:36.500 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
arrested in this way, is
everywhere in the South.

28:36.533 --> 28:40.433 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
In the fall, when it was
time to pick cotton,

28:40.466 --> 28:43.266 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
huge numbers of black people
are arrested

28:43.300 --> 28:45.700 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
in all of the cotton-growing
counties.

28:45.733 --> 28:50.400 align:left position:12.5% line:83% size:77.5%
There are surges in arrests in
counties in Alabama in the days

28:50.433 --> 28:54.033 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
before coincidentally a labor
agent from the coal mines

28:54.066 --> 28:57.233 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
in Birmingham is
coming to town that day

28:57.266 --> 29:00.500 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
to pick up whichever
county convicts are there.

29:00.533 --> 29:02.900 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
(narrator)
Some charges were serious.

29:02.933 --> 29:06.866 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
But more than two-thirds
of all state prisoners

29:06.900 --> 29:11.333 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
at the time of Zeke Archey's
arrest, including Archey,

29:11.366 --> 29:16.266 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
were convicted under vague
charges of burglary and larceny.

29:16.300 --> 29:20.233 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
County prisoners too
were sent to the mines.

29:20.266 --> 29:22.766 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
For often trivial offenses,

29:22.800 --> 29:26.266 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
they faced
the real possibility of death.

29:26.300 --> 29:28.600 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
In some Alabama prison camps,

29:28.633 --> 29:34.300 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
convicts died at a rate
of 30% to 40% a year.

29:34.333 --> 29:39.533 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
And this system is one
that I think in many ways,

29:39.566 --> 29:44.266 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
needs to be understood
as brutal in a social sense,

29:44.300 --> 29:47.900 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
but fiendishly rational
in an economic sense.

29:47.933 --> 29:52.600 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Because where else could
one take a black worker

29:52.633 --> 29:56.800 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
and work them literally to death
after slavery?

29:56.833 --> 30:00.766 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
And when that worker died,
one simply had to go

30:00.800 --> 30:02.500 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
and get another convict.

30:20.500 --> 30:24.533 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
(narrator) The South's state
prison population

30:24.566 --> 30:30.600 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
continued to grow, reaching
19,000 people by 1890.

30:30.633 --> 30:36.766 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Nearly 90% of those held
were African American.

30:36.800 --> 30:39.666 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
When folded
into national statistics,

30:39.700 --> 30:42.566 align:left position:12.5% line:83% size:77.5%
the concentration
of black prisoners

30:42.600 --> 30:46.900 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
seemed to reflect an alarming
rise in black crime.

30:50.800 --> 30:55.500 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(Khlil Muhammad)
So as early as 1890,
African Americans are almost

30:55.533 --> 30:58.566 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
3 times overrepresented
in the prison population.

30:58.600 --> 31:00.833 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
The general population is 12%,

31:00.866 --> 31:04.333 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
the nation's prisons'
populations of blacks is 30%.

31:04.366 --> 31:06.666 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
So there are many
important implications

31:06.700 --> 31:09.766 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
and long-term consequences for
this convict leasing system.

31:09.800 --> 31:13.666 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Not only is it so oppressive,
but when you have

31:13.700 --> 31:15.666 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
an overwhelmingly
black prison population,

31:15.700 --> 31:17.266 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
it cements that relationship

31:17.300 --> 31:20.033 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
between criminality and race
in people's minds

31:20.066 --> 31:23.500 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
to the degree that it's seen
as something inherent.

31:23.533 --> 31:26.700 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(Khlil Muhammad)
Southern editorialists,
sociologists, politicians,

31:26.733 --> 31:30.900 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
are all saying that the
statistics prove

31:30.933 --> 31:34.633 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
that black people
are a criminal race

31:34.666 --> 31:38.366 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
and that freedom
had been a mistake.

31:38.400 --> 31:42.100 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
If you were to ask
most Southerners,

31:42.133 --> 31:44.466 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
white Southerners,
what they thought

31:44.500 --> 31:47.333 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
of African Americans
in the 1850's,

31:47.366 --> 31:50.133 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
the 1860's, even
into the 1870's,

31:50.166 --> 31:52.700 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
one profile would have been

31:52.733 --> 31:56.333 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
of people who are loyal,
dutiful, trustworthy.

31:56.366 --> 31:59.433 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Those same people
in the 1880's

31:59.466 --> 32:03.100 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
and by the 1890's
have been demonized.

32:03.133 --> 32:05.633 align:left position:12.5% line:89% size:77.5%
They no longer are trustworthy,

32:05.666 --> 32:09.766 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
they no longer have
the capacity for citizenship.

32:09.800 --> 32:13.833 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(narrator)
By the 1890s,
white voters had reversed

32:13.866 --> 32:17.333 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
the civil rights gains made
during Reconstruction.

32:17.366 --> 32:22.000 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
New state constitutions kept
blacks out of voting booths

32:22.033 --> 32:25.500 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
and limited funding
for black schools.

32:25.533 --> 32:29.033 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Racial segregation
was mandated by law.

32:29.066 --> 32:31.733 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
(James Grossman)
They do this because

32:31.766 --> 32:34.100 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
it's important
to remind black people,

32:34.133 --> 32:37.166 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
day after day after day,
minute after minute,

32:37.200 --> 32:40.400 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
that they have a place
in this society

32:40.433 --> 32:42.666 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
and that that place is
subordinate.

32:42.700 --> 32:46.233 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
So what that means is that
when a black person is

32:46.266 --> 32:49.866 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
walking down the street and a
white person walks towards them,

32:49.900 --> 32:51.533 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
they step into the gutter.

32:51.566 --> 32:56.833 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
My name is
Barbara Jean Belisle.

32:56.866 --> 32:58.933 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
I was born
in Birmingham in 1936.

32:58.966 --> 33:01.100 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
You had to stay in your place.

33:01.133 --> 33:03.833 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Now, my daddy was
the one who was daring.

33:03.866 --> 33:07.133 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
He used to be called that
uppity nigger by white folks

33:07.166 --> 33:10.666 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
because he believed that we were
just as good as anybody else.

33:10.700 --> 33:13.966 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
He's a smart man; he's
one of the first black men

33:14.000 --> 33:16.100 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
in this area
to register to vote.

33:16.133 --> 33:19.066 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
There were a lot of times
truckloads of KKK folks

33:19.100 --> 33:20.866 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
would pass by the house,

33:20.900 --> 33:23.566 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
where he had made white folks
mad about something.

33:23.600 --> 33:25.333 align:left position:12.5% line:89% size:77.5%
He wouldn't let my mother work.

33:25.366 --> 33:29.233 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
She went to clean up a house
one time, and he went over

33:29.266 --> 33:32.233 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
to pick her up and she
was cleaning the cabinets

33:32.266 --> 33:35.533 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
down on her knees, trying
to clean out a cabinet,

33:35.566 --> 33:37.700 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
he told her,
"You're not going back,

33:37.733 --> 33:39.466 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
you clean up your own cabinets."

33:39.500 --> 33:41.833 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
And that's
the kind of man he was.

33:41.866 --> 33:43.666 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
But he's another story though,

33:43.700 --> 33:47.033 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
I'd have to talk about him
another time.

33:50.466 --> 33:55.633 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(narrator)
Segregation was not only
mandated by Southern states,

33:55.666 --> 34:00.433 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
it was upheld by
the US Supreme Court

34:00.466 --> 34:04.533 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
in an 1896 ruling,
Plessy versus Ferguson.

34:04.566 --> 34:07.966 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
And after that, white
Southerners, white legislatures,

34:08.000 --> 34:12.400 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
never had any reservation
about imposing the most severe,

34:12.433 --> 34:15.866 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
the most repressive restrictions
on black life.

34:15.900 --> 34:21.366 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(narrator)
Ezekiel Archey was scheduled
for release on February 6, 1887,

34:21.400 --> 34:26.333 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
at the age of 28,
but he was not free;

34:26.366 --> 34:30.933 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
a new indictment, for reasons
unknown, was pending.

34:30.966 --> 34:37.866 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(man, as Ezekiel)
This letter is not all
I could write,

34:37.900 --> 34:41.633 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
but my condition
will not permit.

34:41.666 --> 34:45.633 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
Fate seems to curse the convict,

34:45.666 --> 34:49.633 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
death seems
to summon us hence.

35:01.133 --> 35:04.933 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(narrator)
As the 19th century
came to a close,

35:04.966 --> 35:07.533 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
and for many decades to come,

35:07.566 --> 35:10.100 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
the possibility of freedom
was overshadowed

35:10.133 --> 35:14.433 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
by the constant threat
of forced labor and violence.

35:21.733 --> 35:27.466 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Decades after the Civil War,
the nation was reunited.

35:27.500 --> 35:32.033 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
But the place
of black Americans within it

35:32.066 --> 35:35.500 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
seemed more uncertain than ever.

35:35.533 --> 35:39.233 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
[man hums softly]

35:39.266 --> 35:43.466 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(Adam Green)
Many whites in the South
are completely indifferent

35:43.500 --> 35:46.466 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
about whether black people
live or die.

35:46.500 --> 35:49.933 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
They want to see them
in their place.

35:49.966 --> 35:54.700 align:left position:12.5% line:83% size:77.5%
They want to see them as an
exploitable system of labor.

35:54.733 --> 35:58.066 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
They want to see them as
an affirmation

35:58.100 --> 35:59.766 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
of their racial superiority.

35:59.800 --> 36:04.966 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
And if they don't fulfill that
role, then to hell with them.

36:05.000 --> 36:10.633 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(man)
♪ Another man done gone
another man done gone ♪

36:14.800 --> 36:18.966 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
I never will forget this;
I'm 9 years old,

36:19.000 --> 36:21.333 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
going from
West Palm Beach

36:21.366 --> 36:24.066 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
to Tampa, where
my mom's from,

36:24.100 --> 36:25.933 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
to see
my Grandmom.

36:25.966 --> 36:29.200 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
And we had a
brand new Oldsmobile,

36:29.233 --> 36:31.600 align:left position:12.5% line:83% size:77.5%
and a cop stopped her
in Kissimmee, Florida,

36:31.633 --> 36:35.000 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
and the way he
talked to my mom, he gave her

36:35.033 --> 36:37.733 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
a ticket for speeding,
and she was not speeding.

36:37.766 --> 36:41.100 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
It was just because he
could do it, you follow me?

36:41.133 --> 36:43.200 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
The ticket cost
a one month's salary.

36:43.233 --> 36:46.100 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
And my mama had to restrain me
'cause I wanted

36:46.133 --> 36:49.333 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
to get after this white boy
like I could not believe,

36:49.366 --> 36:53.700 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
at 9 years old, when you have
to just kind of just tuck it in.

36:53.733 --> 36:57.733 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
Like my mom would say, "Bernard,
you've got to just stop.

36:57.766 --> 37:00.800 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
because me may not
get out of here."

37:00.833 --> 37:05.133 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
And you could see the terror
in her eyes, you follow me?

37:05.166 --> 37:08.466 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
"Cause we in little ol'
Kissimmee in the '50's.

37:12.966 --> 37:16.200 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
[steam whistle blows]

37:16.233 --> 37:20.100 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
(narrator)
September 1901--
the dawn of a new century.

37:21.366 --> 37:26.966 align:left position:45% line:5% size:45%
♪ ♪

37:27.000 --> 37:32.600 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
John Davis, now 23 and renting
his own Alabama farm,

37:32.633 --> 37:37.833 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
was on his way to Goodwater,
about 18 miles away.

37:37.866 --> 37:42.333 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
His wife was ill, and being
cared for there by her parents.

37:42.366 --> 37:44.166 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
It was harvest time,

37:44.200 --> 37:47.466 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
and Davis would have been
careful to avoid trouble,

37:47.500 --> 37:51.333 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
eager to return safely to
his own small patch of cotton.

37:53.300 --> 37:57.666 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
But trouble found him
in the form of Robert Franklin,

37:57.700 --> 37:59.733 align:left position:12.5% line:89% size:77.5%
a local merchant and constable.

38:05.333 --> 38:09.100 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Bob Franklin said, "Nigger
have you got any money?

38:09.133 --> 38:13.333 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
When are you gonna pay
the money you owe me?"

38:13.366 --> 38:17.666 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
I said,
"I don't owe you any money."

38:17.700 --> 38:20.533 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(narrator)
Convicts were not
the only Southerners

38:20.566 --> 38:23.066 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
being forced into hard labor.

38:23.100 --> 38:26.400 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Throughout the South, many
thousands of African Americans

38:26.433 --> 38:30.900 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
were tied to white employers
through various forms of debt.

38:30.933 --> 38:35.900 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
You get a person in debt, you
continually keep him in debt,

38:35.933 --> 38:40.766 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
you never let him work it off,
and you control their labor.

38:40.800 --> 38:44.300 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Any kind of relationship
where you use debt

38:44.333 --> 38:47.866 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
as the fulcrum to extract labor,
that's illegal.

38:47.900 --> 38:50.066 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
You've violated the peonage law.

38:50.100 --> 38:53.233 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(narrator)
Peonage, or debt servitude,
was outlawed

38:53.266 --> 38:57.900 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
by the federal government
just after the Civil War.

38:57.933 --> 39:03.500 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(Douglas A. Blackmon)
Peonage comes from the word
peon, of Mexican peons.

39:03.533 --> 39:05.300 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
It's serfdom, it's peasantry.

39:05.333 --> 39:09.033 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Ironically enough, the United
States made peonage illegal

39:09.066 --> 39:13.600 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
only as a result of the
acquisition of New Mexico.

39:13.633 --> 39:16.400 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
And the federal government
didn't want

39:16.433 --> 39:20.533 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
to introduce Mexican peonage
into the American legal system.

39:20.566 --> 39:24.733 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
And so in 1867, the Congress
made peonage illegal.

39:24.766 --> 39:28.066 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
(narrator)
Nearly 40 years later, in 1903,

39:28.100 --> 39:31.800 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
a federal judge in Alabama
raised an alarm

39:31.833 --> 39:35.533 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
about allegations of peonage
in his jurisdiction.

39:35.566 --> 39:40.100 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(man)
Witnesses have reported
that a systematic scheme

39:40.133 --> 39:44.133 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
of depriving Negroes
of their liberty in Alabama

39:44.166 --> 39:47.100 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
has been practiced
for some time.

39:47.133 --> 39:51.800 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Judge Thomas Goode Jones was
a former Confederate officer

39:51.833 --> 39:54.100 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
and two-time governor
of Alabama.

39:54.133 --> 39:56.900 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Viewed as something
of a moderate,

39:56.933 --> 40:00.666 align:left position:12.5% line:83% size:77.5%
he'd been appointed
to the federal court

40:00.700 --> 40:03.433 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
by U.S. President
Theodore Roosevelt.

40:03.466 --> 40:07.033 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(Douglas A. Blackmon)
Teddy Roosevelt
becomes president in 1901,

40:07.066 --> 40:09.466 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
after the assassination
of William McKinley.

40:09.500 --> 40:12.300 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
He viewed himself
as an egalitarian person

40:12.333 --> 40:16.300 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
on the side of both business
and the working man.

40:16.333 --> 40:19.666 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
He believed that exposure
of the sins of society

40:19.700 --> 40:22.766 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
and exposure of the sins
of commerce industrialism

40:22.800 --> 40:24.700 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
would lead to their eradication.

40:24.733 --> 40:28.500 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
And he believed that for
the factories of the North

40:28.533 --> 40:32.600 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
and he believed that for the
racial abuses of the South.

40:32.633 --> 40:35.666 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(narrator)
The president authorized
a federal investigation

40:35.700 --> 40:38.766 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
into peonage
in the Alabama counties

40:38.800 --> 40:41.333 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
of Shelby, Coosa,
and Tallapoosa.

40:43.766 --> 40:48.366 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(Risa Goluboff)
Now, they thought that these
were exceptional circumstances,

40:48.400 --> 40:51.633 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
they were
out of the ordinary.

40:51.666 --> 40:54.866 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
And I think that
the Roosevelt administration

40:54.900 --> 40:57.200 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
and the Roosevelt Justice
Department

40:57.233 --> 41:02.400 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
thought that it could-- score
points is too easy a word--

41:02.433 --> 41:07.466 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
but that it could, by making
a stand in this way,

41:07.500 --> 41:09.766 align:left position:12.5% line:89% size:77.5%
it could accomplish quite a lot

41:09.800 --> 41:13.133 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
and have a symbolic impact
that was pretty large.

41:13.166 --> 41:16.333 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(narrator)
Federal peonage inquiries
were also underway

41:16.366 --> 41:18.400 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
in Georgia and Florida.

41:18.433 --> 41:21.200 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
In Alabama, witnesses
were called to appear

41:21.233 --> 41:24.133 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
before the federal grand jury
to determine

41:24.166 --> 41:27.766 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
if there was enough evidence
to go to trial.

41:27.800 --> 41:33.000 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Prosecuting the case was
U.S. Attorney Warren S. Reese,

41:33.033 --> 41:37.800 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
born in Alabama
just after the Civil War.

41:37.833 --> 41:45.000 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(man, as Reese)
Now I have lived in this state
my entire life of 37 years,

41:45.033 --> 41:49.033 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
and I have never comprehended
until now the extent

41:49.066 --> 41:51.766 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
of this present
method of slavery

41:51.800 --> 41:53.500 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
through this peonage system.

41:53.533 --> 41:56.733 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Southern progressives
were not free of the racism

41:56.766 --> 41:58.400 align:left position:12.5% line:89% size:77.5%
that Southern conservatives had

41:58.433 --> 42:02.033 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
or Northern progressives
were not free of that either.

42:02.066 --> 42:05.933 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
But they did think that there
were some things

42:05.966 --> 42:08.533 align:left position:12.5% line:89% size:77.5%
that were just beyond the pale.

42:08.566 --> 42:11.566 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
And so when stories, horrific,
sensationalized stories

42:11.600 --> 42:14.533 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
of African American slavery
came to light,

42:14.566 --> 42:18.500 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
they were precisely
the kind of thing that we,

42:18.533 --> 42:22.366 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
as a modern, civilized nation,
should not engage in.

42:22.400 --> 42:25.366 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(narrator)
Among those testifying
was John Davis,

42:25.400 --> 42:28.766 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
freed hastily as word
of the investigation spread.

42:28.800 --> 42:32.233 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
(man, as John Davis)
Bob Franklin said,

42:32.266 --> 42:36.900 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
"When are you going to pay
the money you owe me?"

42:36.933 --> 42:42.300 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
I said,
"I don't owe you any money."

42:42.333 --> 42:47.300 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(narrator)
Nearly 18 months had passed
since he'd been stopped

42:47.333 --> 42:49.800 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
by Franklin,
the local constable.

42:49.833 --> 42:53.500 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
His testimony echoed
that of other victims.

42:53.533 --> 42:57.700 align:left position:12.5% line:83% size:77.5%
Like Davis, they were falsely
accused and quickly convicted.

42:57.733 --> 43:02.500 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
They were sentenced and charged
fines and court fees,

43:02.533 --> 43:04.800 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
which they couldn't pay.

43:04.833 --> 43:09.966 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
They could do nothing
as local whites paid the court,

43:10.000 --> 43:13.033 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
and took control of them.

43:13.066 --> 43:18.766 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
John Davis was bought
from the court by Bob Franklin,

43:18.800 --> 43:21.366 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
and then resold, for profit.

43:21.400 --> 43:28.966 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(man, as John Davis)
He said, "We gonna'
carry you over to Mr. Pace's."

43:29.000 --> 43:33.733 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
I told him I didn't know
anything about it,

43:33.766 --> 43:36.633 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
and he said, "We know."

43:36.666 --> 43:40.500 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
(Douglas A. Blackmon)
John Pace was the baron

43:40.533 --> 43:42.266 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
of Tallapoosa County, Alabama.

43:42.300 --> 43:47.000 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
He had been the sheriff
of the county in the 1880's.

43:47.033 --> 43:50.500 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
He then amassed
a substantial amount of land,

43:50.533 --> 43:53.466 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
the most fertile land
along the Tallapoosa River

43:53.500 --> 43:55.333 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
in his part of Alabama.

43:55.366 --> 43:59.866 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
He was quite a character,
6 foot 2, 230-pound man

43:59.900 --> 44:04.466 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
who had frostbitten toes
and was supposed to be very ill.

44:04.500 --> 44:08.066 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
And when he walked the earth
shook they said.

44:08.100 --> 44:12.300 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(man)
I bought the Negro John Davis
from Bob Franklin,

44:12.333 --> 44:13.933 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
the constable of Tallapoosa.

44:13.966 --> 44:18.933 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
I explained to Davis that he
would be confined on my farm,

44:18.966 --> 44:21.400 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
just as I confined
county convicts.

44:21.433 --> 44:25.133 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
(man, as John Davis)
Mr. Pace asks,

44:25.166 --> 44:28.866 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
"Will you work
10 months with me?"

44:28.900 --> 44:31.566 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
And I signed a contract.

44:31.600 --> 44:36.733 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(narrator)
These contracts gave employers
the right to whip, confine,

44:36.766 --> 44:42.900 align:left position:12.5% line:83% size:77.5%
and even trade workers, as long
as the debt was deemed unpaid.

44:42.933 --> 44:48.633 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(Peter Daniel)
Peonage varied from a kind
of paternalistic peonage

44:48.666 --> 44:53.800 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
to just the most awful
conditions you could imagine.

44:53.833 --> 44:55.633 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
People were put in barracks,

44:55.666 --> 44:57.900 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
they were beaten,
and some killed.

44:57.933 --> 45:00.833 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
People were flogged; they were
chased by bloodhounds.

45:00.866 --> 45:03.400 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
It was pretty horrible
at its worst,

45:03.433 --> 45:06.700 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
It was about as bad
as it can get.

45:06.733 --> 45:11.533 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(man, as Reese)
Brutal things have transpired
and sometimes death has been

45:11.566 --> 45:14.766 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
the result of the infliction
of corporal punishment.

45:14.800 --> 45:17.166 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(narrator)
Prosecutor Warren Reese's
reports to Washington

45:17.200 --> 45:18.900 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
grew more urgent.

45:18.933 --> 45:22.133 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Peonage was not isolated
in a few counties,

45:22.166 --> 45:24.566 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
but was evident throughout
the state,

45:24.600 --> 45:27.766 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
trapping hundreds
or even thousands of people.

45:27.800 --> 45:31.400 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
(man, as Reese)
These violations have developed

45:31.433 --> 45:35.466 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
into a miserable business
and custom to catch up

45:35.500 --> 45:40.000 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
with Negro men and women
upon the flimsiest of charges.

45:40.033 --> 45:42.033 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
(narrator)
Reporting to Washington,

45:42.066 --> 45:47.700 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Reese would have had to remind
himself that this was 1903.

45:47.733 --> 45:51.766 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
In Detroit,
the Ford Motor Company

45:51.800 --> 45:56.400 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
had begun production
of the Model A.

45:56.433 --> 46:02.166 align:left position:32.5% line:77% size:57.5%
On Wall Street,
the new Stock Exchange Building
had just opened.

46:02.200 --> 46:05.166 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
In Kitty Hawk,
the Wright Brothers

46:05.200 --> 46:07.733 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
were preparing
their first flight.

46:07.766 --> 46:11.700 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Yet in much of the South,
African Americans

46:11.733 --> 46:13.766 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
were still being held

46:13.800 --> 46:18.766 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
in what Reese and the press
called, "abject slavery."

46:18.800 --> 46:23.400 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(Pete Daniel)
What the U.S. attorneys
like Reese found

46:23.433 --> 46:26.600 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
was a totally corrupt
legal system,

46:26.633 --> 46:31.733 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
where you had the justices
of the peace were corrupt,

46:31.766 --> 46:34.533 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
in that the people
that came before them

46:34.566 --> 46:38.100 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
may not be guilty, but
they would find them guilty.

46:38.133 --> 46:42.300 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(narrator)
John Pace, Fletcher Turner
and William and George Cosby,

46:42.333 --> 46:46.166 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
all of them wealthy farmers,
were the ringleaders.

46:46.200 --> 46:51.733 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(Douglas A. Blackmon)
All of them had their own
justice of the peace.

46:51.766 --> 46:57.266 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
In the case of John Pace, he had
a man named James Kennedy.

46:57.300 --> 47:01.600 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Mr. J. W. Pace and I are
brothers-in-law by marriage.

47:01.633 --> 47:06.600 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
I went to work for him
on the first of June, 1891.

47:06.633 --> 47:08.900 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
If they wanted a man convicted
of any particular thing,

47:08.933 --> 47:11.266 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
then they simply had their own
justice of the peace,

47:11.300 --> 47:14.100 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
or the justice of the peace
of one of the other families,

47:14.133 --> 47:15.800 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
declare someone to be guilty.

47:15.833 --> 47:21.300 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Note in none of these cases
that I have spoken about

47:21.333 --> 47:28.866 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
did I receive one cent of costs,
nor was I paid in any other way

47:28.900 --> 47:33.866 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
by Mr. Pace or anybody else
for trying these cases.

47:33.900 --> 47:38.233 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
And after I worked
that 10 months,

47:38.266 --> 47:45.100 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
my time was out
on the 10th day of July, 1902.

47:45.133 --> 47:51.100 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
I told him,
"My time is out this morning."

47:51.133 --> 47:55.100 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
He said, "Go ahead to work."

47:55.133 --> 48:04.233 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
I said, "No, I'm
going home this morning."

48:04.266 --> 48:12.666 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
And he locked me up for 3 days,
and after that he said,

48:12.700 --> 48:17.166 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
"If I don't go to work,

48:17.200 --> 48:21.133 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
he'll put me
in the river down there."

48:28.400 --> 48:32.366 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(narrator)
As the investigation
in Alabama continued,

48:32.400 --> 48:36.366 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
the federal grand jury
began issuing indictments

48:36.400 --> 48:41.700 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
John Pace was charged with
several counts of peonage

48:41.733 --> 48:46.466 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
If convicted,
he faced decades in prison.

48:46.500 --> 48:51.000 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
The next day, Pace's
justice of the peace,

48:51.033 --> 48:54.400 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
James Kennedy, unexpectedly
returned to court.

48:54.433 --> 48:57.200 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(Douglas A. Blackmon)
James Kennedy came
to be terrified

48:57.233 --> 49:01.000 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
that he would be convicted at
trial once he had been indicted.

49:01.033 --> 49:03.466 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
He's the guy who fabricated
all the documents,

49:03.500 --> 49:06.233 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
he's the one who declared
all these people guilty,

49:06.266 --> 49:09.033 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
and so he feels
a great sense of jeopardy.

49:09.066 --> 49:14.033 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
If anybody from
the Cosby family wanted a Negro,

49:14.066 --> 49:20.066 align:left position:12.5% line:83% size:77.5%
they would send somebody before
me and have an affidavit made.

49:20.100 --> 49:25.200 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
The Negro would be fined
and made to sign a contract

49:25.233 --> 49:27.533 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
and sent to the farm.

49:27.566 --> 49:32.333 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
This was never reported
to the jurors.

49:32.366 --> 49:37.166 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(narrator)
Kennedy confirmed that
at least 80 men and women

49:37.200 --> 49:40.100 align:left position:12.5% line:83% size:77.5%
had fallen victim
to the conspiracy.

49:40.133 --> 49:43.000 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
Many other cases were suspected.

49:43.033 --> 49:47.466 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
As the grand jury continued
to issue indictments,

49:47.500 --> 49:50.000 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
they asked Judge Jones

49:50.033 --> 49:53.966 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
to explain
the federal law against peonage.

49:54.000 --> 49:58.166 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Judge Jones comes back
with a ruling, which asserts

49:58.200 --> 50:00.933 align:left position:12.5% line:89% size:77.5%
that in essentially every case,

50:00.966 --> 50:07.066 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
in which a landowner is holding
a laborer to pay back a debt,

50:07.100 --> 50:10.366 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
that unless there has been
a conviction

50:10.400 --> 50:15.566 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
of that person in an open court,
in a sanctioned way

50:15.600 --> 50:19.233 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
by the government, it's peonage,
it's debt slavery.

50:19.266 --> 50:22.533 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
(man, as Judge Jones)
They are guilty of a conspiracy

50:22.566 --> 50:24.966 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
to deprive that person
of the free exercise

50:25.000 --> 50:27.966 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
or enjoyment of a right
or privilege secured to him

50:28.000 --> 50:30.033 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
by the Constitution
of the United States.

50:30.066 --> 50:34.166 align:left position:12.5% line:89% size:77.5%
And the ruling from Judge Jones

50:34.200 --> 50:37.033 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
unleashes this firestorm
of fear and panic,

50:37.066 --> 50:40.666 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
not just in Alabama,
but all across the South.

50:40.700 --> 50:45.966 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(narrator)
Forty years after the Civil War,
the United States had emerged

50:46.000 --> 50:49.566 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
as a global economic leader,
due in part

50:49.600 --> 50:52.266 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
to Southern industry
and agriculture.

50:52.300 --> 50:56.266 align:left position:12.5% line:83% size:77.5%
Employers throughout the South
relied on debt to coerce labor.

50:56.300 --> 50:59.966 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
The judge's ruling might apply
not just to convicts

51:00.000 --> 51:04.200 align:left position:12.5% line:83% size:77.5%
or those trapped by corruption,
but also hundreds of thousands

51:04.233 --> 51:07.033 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
of black families tied
to white landowners

51:07.066 --> 51:09.466 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
through tenant farming
and sharecropping.

51:09.500 --> 51:13.266 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(Douglas A. Blackmon)
If they lose access
to that army of laborers,

51:13.300 --> 51:15.500 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
or they're compelled
to deal with them

51:15.533 --> 51:17.466 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
on equitable terms
as free citizens,

51:17.500 --> 51:20.900 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
then the entire Southern economy
is disrupted, and along with it,

51:20.933 --> 51:23.433 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
the entire U.S. economy
is disrupted as well.

51:23.466 --> 51:26.800 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
What had begun as
a principal investigation

51:26.833 --> 51:30.066 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
that was probably
going to go nowhere,

51:30.100 --> 51:33.433 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
was turning into a potential
political catastrophe

51:33.466 --> 51:35.333 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
for the Roosevelt
Administration.

51:35.366 --> 51:39.766 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(woman)
"Mr. President, I have
a brother about 14 years old.

51:39.800 --> 51:45.100 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
A man hired him from me
and I heard of him no more."

51:45.133 --> 51:47.633 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Among black Southerners,
reports that peonage

51:47.666 --> 51:51.066 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
was being prosecuted sparked
a very different outcry:

51:51.100 --> 51:56.233 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
a flood of letters, many of them
addressed to the president.

51:56.266 --> 52:02.066 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(Douglas A. Blackmon)
At the National Archives today,
there's more than 30,000 pages

52:02.100 --> 52:06.066 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
of this kind of material
that document the arrest,

52:06.100 --> 52:08.700 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
the subjugation, the punishment,
the mistreatment,

52:08.733 --> 52:13.166 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
the profit that was made off
of the forced labor

52:13.200 --> 52:16.266 align:left position:12.5% line:89% size:77.5%
of armies and armies of people.

52:16.300 --> 52:21.000 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
He has done nothing wrong
for them to keep him in chains.

52:21.033 --> 52:25.633 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
So I write to you to help me
get my poor brother.

52:25.666 --> 52:30.800 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Please let me hear from you
at once, Carrie Kinsey.

52:30.833 --> 52:33.400 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
My name is
Bernard William Kinsey.

52:33.433 --> 52:35.466 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
Carrie Kinsey is a cousin.

52:35.500 --> 52:41.033 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
When I held this letter,
and it hadn't, I mean,

52:41.066 --> 52:43.833 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
here you holding
Carrie's legacy.

52:43.866 --> 52:48.666 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
When you begin to connect
with your family,

52:48.700 --> 52:52.933 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
you can put yourself back
into 1900

52:52.966 --> 52:57.733 align:left position:12.5% line:83% size:77.5%
and how difficult
it was for anybody

52:57.766 --> 52:59.666 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
to push up against the system.

52:59.700 --> 53:04.366 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(man)
"Dear Sir, I have a little girl
that has been kidnapped from me.

53:04.400 --> 53:08.233 align:left position:12.5% line:83% size:77.5%
Some time ago, my attention was
called to a condition of affairs

53:08.266 --> 53:11.533 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
in existence there so appalling
in its vice and cruelty.

53:11.566 --> 53:14.433 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
And they just beat sores
on me every day.

53:14.466 --> 53:16.766 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
They started to whip me
one day..."

53:16.800 --> 53:19.366 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
These letters are
incredibly poignant.

53:19.400 --> 53:21.266 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
A lot of them, even though

53:21.300 --> 53:23.866 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
they're not written
in the language of rights,

53:23.900 --> 53:25.833 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
do refer
to the Thirteenth Amendment.

53:25.866 --> 53:29.700 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
They are aware that they have
a right not to be enslaved,

53:29.733 --> 53:32.966 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
and they're calling upon the
government to protect them

53:33.000 --> 53:36.166 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
from slavery that they thought
was supposed to be over.

53:36.200 --> 53:39.300 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
There was a tremendous hope,
it's absolutely evident
through these letters

53:39.333 --> 53:41.300 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
that a huge population
of African Americans

53:41.333 --> 53:44.100 align:left position:12.5% line:83% size:77.5%
believed that the president was
finally coming to their rescue.

53:53.133 --> 53:57.733 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(narrator)
But the Alabama peonage trials
in the summer of 1903

53:57.766 --> 54:01.566 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
were over almost
as soon as they began.

54:01.600 --> 54:03.533 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
[banging of a gavel]

54:03.566 --> 54:07.933 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
The federal government was eager
to cap the investigation,

54:07.966 --> 54:11.300 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
punish the ringleaders,
and move on.

54:11.333 --> 54:16.400 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
The Cosbys and Fletcher Turner
pleaded guilty,

54:16.433 --> 54:20.166 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
and Judge Jones imposed
minimum sentences.

54:20.200 --> 54:22.633 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
Judge Jones
really believed

54:22.666 --> 54:24.766 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
that if you convicted
these people,

54:24.800 --> 54:26.833 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
some of them got fines,

54:26.866 --> 54:30.366 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
a few of them even served
a little jail time,

54:30.400 --> 54:32.500 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
that that would furnish
an example

54:32.533 --> 54:36.700 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
so that people who were doing
this would no longer do it.

54:36.733 --> 54:40.933 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(narrator)
Pace also pleaded guilty
and was sentenced to prison.

54:40.966 --> 54:43.100 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
He remained free on appeal

54:43.133 --> 54:46.100 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
as his lawyers prepared
an outrageous argument.

54:46.133 --> 54:49.766 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
They said Pace was
not guilty of peonage,

54:49.800 --> 54:53.500 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
because his victims
did not owe him money.

54:53.533 --> 54:58.166 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
And while he may have been
guilty of slavery,

54:58.200 --> 55:02.000 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
in 1903 that was not a crime.

55:02.033 --> 55:05.966 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(Pete Daniel)
It was a grayish area
because there was

55:06.000 --> 55:08.333 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
a Thirteenth Amendment
that abolished slavery,

55:08.366 --> 55:11.100 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
but there was never
a statute passed

55:11.133 --> 55:13.566 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
to make you guilty of slavery,

55:13.600 --> 55:17.100 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
of holding somebody in slavery
after the Civil War.

55:17.133 --> 55:21.100 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(narrator)
Three months after the trial,
in September 1903,

55:21.133 --> 55:25.166 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
President Roosevelt granted
a pardon to the Cosbys.

55:25.200 --> 55:30.100 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Three years later, in 1906,
he also pardoned John W. Pace.

55:30.133 --> 55:33.466 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Pace never went to prison,
and the federal government

55:33.500 --> 55:36.800 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
turned a blind eye
to the forced laborers

55:36.833 --> 55:39.466 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
he continued
to hold on his farm.

55:39.500 --> 55:43.133 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(Risa Goluboff)
The federal government
really pulls back

55:43.166 --> 55:46.433 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
from doing these cases
in a big way.

55:46.466 --> 55:52.600 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
There was a lack of will to do
what would be and proved to be

55:52.633 --> 55:56.233 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
very hard work of actually
uprooting the tremendous systems

55:56.266 --> 55:59.600 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
of involuntary servitude that
existed in the South.

55:59.633 --> 56:03.700 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
I don't think
the federal government
had that political will.

56:11.166 --> 56:14.266 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
(woman)
My uncle was named Henry Malone.

56:14.300 --> 56:16.566 align:left position:12.5% line:89% size:77.5%
He's my father's older brother.

56:16.600 --> 56:19.766 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
This story happened
somewhere around maybe 1910.

56:19.800 --> 56:22.966 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
Henry was then just a young man.

56:23.000 --> 56:27.533 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Whatever it was that he did,
the local sheriff

56:27.566 --> 56:32.500 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
came to my grandfather's place
and they were looking for him,

56:32.533 --> 56:36.100 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
and my grandfather
got my Uncle Henry

56:36.133 --> 56:38.800 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
to come and turn himself in.

56:38.833 --> 56:43.233 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
He was sent away and he had to
serve a year and a day.

56:43.266 --> 56:46.466 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
We never got a chance to know
the stories of why

56:46.500 --> 56:50.266 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
or what may have happened to him
in that year and a day.

56:50.300 --> 56:52.966 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
For all of my life
and knowing my uncle,

56:53.000 --> 56:56.733 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
I don't think I ever saw him
smile or be a happy man.

57:13.000 --> 57:18.733 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(narrator)
In 1908, two years after
the pardon of John Pace,

57:18.766 --> 57:21.900 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
another young man
would be trapped

57:21.933 --> 57:26.666 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
in the shadow of slavery:
22-year old Green Cottenham.

57:26.700 --> 57:30.100 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
(Douglas A. Blackmon)
The world he entered as a man,

57:30.133 --> 57:32.933 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
just as the 20th century
was beginning, was

57:32.966 --> 57:34.666 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
completely different
in which already

57:34.700 --> 57:37.800 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
every Southern state
had passed rafts of laws

57:37.833 --> 57:40.900 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
designed to circumscribe
the lives of African Americans

57:40.933 --> 57:44.300 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
to limit their ability to work
freely, to move freely,

57:44.333 --> 57:47.433 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
to make it almost impossible
for them to live

57:47.466 --> 57:49.833 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
in true independence
of the powerful whites,

57:49.866 --> 57:51.900 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
wherever it was that they lived.

57:51.933 --> 57:55.933 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
(narrator)
Green was arrested with others

57:55.966 --> 58:00.766 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
outside a train station
in Columbiana, Alabama.

58:00.800 --> 58:06.133 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Within 24 hours, he'd been
convicted of vagrancy.

58:06.166 --> 58:11.800 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
He was sentenced to 3 months
hard labor, and $38 in fines.

58:11.833 --> 58:17.200 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
To pay the fine, the hard labor
was extended to 6 months.

58:17.233 --> 58:20.100 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Green was sent
to the Pratt Mines,

58:20.133 --> 58:23.800 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
which paid the county
$12 a month for him.

58:23.833 --> 58:27.133 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
It's important for us

58:27.166 --> 58:30.900 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
to now go back and re-examine
that notion

58:30.933 --> 58:36.500 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
of what being a convict meant
at the turn of the century.

58:36.533 --> 58:39.633 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Green Cottenham was just picked
up, charged with vagrancy,

58:39.666 --> 58:42.500 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
which is a crime
of no real import,

58:42.533 --> 58:44.900 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
but then thrown
into this prison system.

58:44.933 --> 58:48.800 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Just because you put a label
on someone as a convict

58:48.833 --> 58:51.566 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
or whatever your label is,
that doesn't justify

58:51.600 --> 58:53.700 align:left position:12.5% line:83% size:77.5%
not treating them
like human beings.

58:56.733 --> 59:01.000 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
I'm the daughter
of Meddy Cottenham,

59:01.033 --> 59:05.100 align:left position:12.5% line:5% size:77.5%
the oldest daughter
of George Cottenham.

59:05.133 --> 59:07.566 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
I didn't know that people
could be

59:07.600 --> 59:10.066 align:left position:12.5% line:89% size:77.5%
just picked up and put in jail.

59:10.100 --> 59:12.500 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
They could be lost in the system

59:12.533 --> 59:15.000 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
and nobody knew
where to find them.

59:15.033 --> 59:17.833 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
They could be buried
at some grave somewhere

59:17.866 --> 59:22.066 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
and the family still looking for
them, don't know where they are.

59:22.100 --> 59:26.233 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
I didn't know that the sheriff
department could sell

59:26.266 --> 59:30.833 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
free black people to corporation
steel plants and coal mines.

59:30.866 --> 59:35.000 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
It wasn't in the history books;
we didn't know.

59:36.833 --> 59:42.233 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(narrator)
Thirty years had passed, but
except for the electric lights,

59:42.266 --> 59:45.666 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Ezekiel Archey would have
easily recognized

59:45.700 --> 59:49.133 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
the conditions Green Cottenham
now faced.

59:49.166 --> 59:52.433 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Above ground though,
Birmingham was becoming

59:52.466 --> 59:55.166 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
the region's largest
industrial center.

59:55.200 --> 01:00:00.100 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
The mine that leased Green's
labor was now owned

01:00:00.133 --> 01:00:02.866 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
by the Northern-based
U.S. Steel--

01:00:02.900 --> 01:00:06.766 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
the largest corporation
in the world.

01:00:12.600 --> 01:00:15.633 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
[steam whistle blows]

01:00:15.666 --> 01:00:19.466 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
And a growing number
of African Americans,

01:00:19.500 --> 01:00:23.300 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
nearly 2 million
between 1910 and 1930,

01:00:23.333 --> 01:00:27.166 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
were moving out of the South.

01:00:27.200 --> 01:00:30.500 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(Pete Daniel)
There were plenty of reasons
for black people

01:00:30.533 --> 01:00:33.233 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
to get the hell
out of the South.

01:00:33.266 --> 01:00:36.300 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Having to put up
with the threat of lynching,

01:00:36.333 --> 01:00:38.366 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
with being grabbed
off the street

01:00:38.400 --> 01:00:41.066 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
and put in jail
and made to work,

01:00:41.100 --> 01:00:43.800 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
and every time
you walked down the street,

01:00:43.833 --> 01:00:46.866 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
you had to be
on your p's and q's

01:00:46.900 --> 01:00:48.566 align:left position:12.5% line:89% size:77.5%
so you wouldn't offend anybody.

01:00:48.600 --> 01:00:53.700 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(narrator)
The North was erecting its own
barriers to black achievement.

01:00:53.733 --> 01:00:56.333 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
President Woodrow Wilson,
elected in 1912,

01:00:56.366 --> 01:00:57.700 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
mandated Southern-style
segregation

01:00:57.733 --> 01:00:59.400 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
throughout
the federal government.

01:00:59.433 --> 01:01:01.966 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
There's a kind of
gentleman's agreement

01:01:02.000 --> 01:01:03.933 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
that's emerging during
the Wilson administration

01:01:03.966 --> 01:01:07.866 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
that the federal government is
not only going to look away

01:01:07.900 --> 01:01:10.266 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
at the practices of the South,

01:01:10.300 --> 01:01:12.733 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
but it's going to adopt
those practices

01:01:12.766 --> 01:01:16.900 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
in relation to the ways in which
it organizes its own affairs.

01:01:16.933 --> 01:01:19.633 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
(narrator)
Nearly 400,000 African Americans

01:01:19.666 --> 01:01:23.966 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
fought for democracy
in World War One.

01:01:24.000 --> 01:01:27.233 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
They returned to unprecedented
racial hostility.

01:01:27.266 --> 01:01:31.933 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(Bernard Kinsey)
It just gives you chills to
think that someone could go

01:01:31.966 --> 01:01:34.800 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
and fight for their
country and come back

01:01:34.833 --> 01:01:38.033 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
and have to fight
for their very life

01:01:38.066 --> 01:01:41.266 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
because of one thing, because
they are African American.

01:01:41.300 --> 01:01:45.400 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(narrator)
A new generation of civil rights
organizations had emerged.

01:01:45.433 --> 01:01:47.933 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Among them was
the National Association

01:01:47.966 --> 01:01:51.700 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
for the Advancement of Colored
People, founded in 1909

01:01:51.733 --> 01:01:56.066 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
by a group of activists,
including W.E.B. Du Bois.

01:01:56.100 --> 01:02:01.733 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
"We claim for ourselves every
single right that belongs

01:02:01.766 --> 01:02:04.800 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
to a freeborn American,
political,

01:02:04.833 --> 01:02:08.500 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
civil and social,"
Du Bois wrote.

01:02:08.533 --> 01:02:12.866 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
"And until we get these rights
we will never cease to protest

01:02:12.900 --> 01:02:15.466 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
and to assail
the ears of America.

01:02:15.500 --> 01:02:17.700 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
This battle we wage is

01:02:17.733 --> 01:02:20.700 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
not for ourselves
but for all Americans."

01:02:20.733 --> 01:02:25.333 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
W. B. Du Bois is very clear

01:02:25.366 --> 01:02:29.933 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
that the ways in which
Jim Crow Laws,

01:02:29.966 --> 01:02:33.966 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
violence in the form of
lynching, disenfranchisement,

01:02:34.000 --> 01:02:37.366 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
and overall discrediting,
disrespect

01:02:37.400 --> 01:02:39.233 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
of black people's
basic humanity,

01:02:39.266 --> 01:02:41.833 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
is something that has to be seen

01:02:41.866 --> 01:02:44.833 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
as a force that holds
black people down.

01:02:44.866 --> 01:02:49.466 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
(David Levering Lewis)
This paradigm, the NAACP's was,

01:02:49.500 --> 01:02:53.533 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
there can be no negotiation
for civil liberties;

01:02:53.566 --> 01:02:57.100 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
they must exist totally,
fully, and immediately,

01:02:57.133 --> 01:03:01.866 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
more than a new narrative
and a new voice,

01:03:01.900 --> 01:03:05.900 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
it also fielded a degree
of litigious activism.

01:03:05.933 --> 01:03:09.100 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
They are saying that there needs
to be anti-lynching law.

01:03:09.133 --> 01:03:13.266 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
They are saying
that there needs to be
reform of the justice system.

01:03:13.300 --> 01:03:16.166 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
They are saying that labor laws
and labor arrangements

01:03:16.200 --> 01:03:18.400 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
need to be reformed
within the South.

01:03:18.433 --> 01:03:23.600 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
And they're
becoming increasingly effective
in terms of doing that.

01:03:23.633 --> 01:03:28.300 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(narrator)
By 1908, the year
Green Cottenham was arrested,

01:03:28.333 --> 01:03:32.633 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
the South's use
of prison labor was changing.

01:03:32.666 --> 01:03:35.600 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
County governments
continued to profit

01:03:35.633 --> 01:03:38.500 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
from renting convicts
to private industry.

01:03:38.533 --> 01:03:44.333 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
But growing numbers of states,
in what was billed as reform,

01:03:44.366 --> 01:03:48.033 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
began to use prisoners
on state-run enterprises.

01:03:48.066 --> 01:03:53.000 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Chained together,
prisoners on road crews

01:03:53.033 --> 01:03:57.866 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
became an icon
of the modernizing South.

01:03:57.900 --> 01:04:00.266 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Perversely, one of the biggest
motivating factors

01:04:00.300 --> 01:04:02.666 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
behind the creation
of the chain gangs

01:04:02.700 --> 01:04:05.000 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
were that Southerners
all across the region

01:04:05.033 --> 01:04:08.233 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
were frustrated
that the roads of the South

01:04:08.266 --> 01:04:11.033 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
were the most terrible
imaginable roads in America.

01:04:11.066 --> 01:04:13.166 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
The economy couldn't
grow effectively,

01:04:13.200 --> 01:04:16.266 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
crops were
lost in the fields,

01:04:16.300 --> 01:04:19.366 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
simply because the roads
were so terrible.

01:04:19.400 --> 01:04:22.433 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
The conditions for chain gang
prisoners were

01:04:22.466 --> 01:04:26.466 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
equally horrific as they were
for convict leased prisoners.

01:04:26.500 --> 01:04:30.000 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
They were subject
to the same modes of brutality,

01:04:30.033 --> 01:04:33.866 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
the same beatings, the same
standards of meager health care,

01:04:33.900 --> 01:04:37.300 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
meager forms of shelter,
clothing, food.

01:04:41.100 --> 01:04:45.700 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(narrator)
Chain gangs continued deep
into the 20th century,

01:04:45.733 --> 01:04:49.300 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
along with other forms
of forced labor,

01:04:49.333 --> 01:04:51.800 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
including debt peonage
and sharecropping.

01:04:51.833 --> 01:04:54.333 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
(Mary Ellen Curtin)
A sharecropper will agree

01:04:54.366 --> 01:04:57.200 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
to work for a percentage
of the proceeds

01:04:57.233 --> 01:04:59.766 align:left position:12.5% line:89% size:77.5%
of the sale of the cotton crop.

01:04:59.800 --> 01:05:02.833 align:left position:10% line:59% size:80%
Sharecroppers had to take out
loans in order to survive

01:05:02.866 --> 01:05:06.100 align:left position:10% line:59% size:80%
and in order to bring
the crop in during the year.

01:05:06.133 --> 01:05:09.433 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(Adam Green)
50%, 70%, 90% interest rates
were not uncommon

01:05:09.466 --> 01:05:12.433 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
all throughout the South in
relation to

01:05:12.466 --> 01:05:15.066 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
sharecropping finance
of the basic necessities

01:05:15.100 --> 01:05:18.033 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
that they needed
to get through the year.

01:05:18.066 --> 01:05:21.100 align:left position:12.5% line:83% size:77.5%
So that system is going
to put African Americans

01:05:21.133 --> 01:05:23.166 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
in a position where
upward mobility

01:05:23.200 --> 01:05:25.500 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
is essentially impossible
for most of them.

01:05:25.533 --> 01:05:28.500 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
(narrator)
Sharecropping also engulfed

01:05:28.533 --> 01:05:32.866 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
growing numbers of whites,
including immigrants.

01:05:32.900 --> 01:05:36.333 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
But without legal
or political rights,

01:05:36.366 --> 01:05:39.266 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
black sharecroppers were
especially vulnerable.

01:05:39.300 --> 01:05:43.166 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Millions of black people
in remote parts of the South

01:05:43.200 --> 01:05:47.100 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
could not leave the farms
they were being held on.

01:05:47.133 --> 01:05:51.433 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
If they did, they were subject
to arrest by the sheriff,

01:05:51.466 --> 01:05:55.033 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
and if they were arrested,
they would then be

01:05:55.066 --> 01:05:57.733 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
returned to the very same farms,

01:05:57.766 --> 01:05:59.733 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
oftentimes in chains,
receiving nothing.

01:05:59.766 --> 01:06:04.500 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Sharecropping is not slavery,
but it did become,

01:06:04.533 --> 01:06:09.066 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
for an enormous population
of people, forced labor.

01:06:09.100 --> 01:06:12.066 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(Sharon Malone)
Families stayed intact,
probably within

01:06:12.100 --> 01:06:16.566 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
a two mile radius
of where they were born.

01:06:16.600 --> 01:06:19.533 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Mothers, fathers, cousins,
grandparents, everybody stayed.

01:06:19.566 --> 01:06:23.533 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
If you knew by the mere fact
of leaving,

01:06:23.566 --> 01:06:25.800 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
exposed you to the danger

01:06:25.833 --> 01:06:30.633 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
of being caught up in this
system, it made you stay.

01:06:30.666 --> 01:06:34.566 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
You knew what would happen
if you stepped off.

01:06:41.700 --> 01:06:44.966 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(woman)
I grew up
in Monticello, Georgia,

01:06:45.000 --> 01:06:50.066 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
which is a small town
about 90 miles south of Atlanta.

01:06:50.100 --> 01:06:55.600 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
My paternal grandmother was the
daughter of John S. Williams.

01:06:55.633 --> 01:06:57.966 align:left position:12.5% line:89% size:77.5%
He died long before I was born.

01:06:58.000 --> 01:07:01.100 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
But I heard from my uncles,
from my father,

01:07:01.133 --> 01:07:04.800 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
from people who knew him,
that he was a wonderful man.

01:07:04.833 --> 01:07:06.333 align:left position:10% line:59% size:80%
He was
well-respected

01:07:06.366 --> 01:07:07.966 align:left position:10% line:65% size:80%
in the community.

01:07:08.000 --> 01:07:12.666 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(narrator)
In 1921, almost 18 years
after the peonage trials,

01:07:12.700 --> 01:07:15.566 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
federal investigators
visited the Williams farm

01:07:15.600 --> 01:07:20.433 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
to follow up on reports
that he was holding peons.

01:07:20.466 --> 01:07:24.166 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
There's a group of black men
out in the field.

01:07:24.200 --> 01:07:26.466 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
The men are obviously terrified,

01:07:26.500 --> 01:07:28.300 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
unwilling to say
almost anything.

01:07:28.333 --> 01:07:31.300 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
They're emaciated; they clearly
have been terrible abused.

01:07:31.333 --> 01:07:32.966 align:left position:12.5% line:5% size:77.5%
John Williams suddenly appears.

01:07:33.000 --> 01:07:36.966 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
He pleads that he didn't know
this was against the law,

01:07:37.000 --> 01:07:40.000 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
that he'll do better,
his intentions were good,

01:07:40.033 --> 01:07:44.066 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
very apologetic to these federal
officials, and they leave.

01:07:44.100 --> 01:07:47.433 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
And he doesn't know
what they're going to do.

01:07:47.466 --> 01:07:49.266 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
He knows they found evidence

01:07:49.300 --> 01:07:52.266 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
that he was holding these people
in slavery.

01:07:52.300 --> 01:07:55.633 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
He talks to his foreman,
Clyde Manning and says,

01:07:55.666 --> 01:07:57.466 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
as the court transcript said,

01:07:57.500 --> 01:08:00.566 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
"We've got to do away
with these boys."

01:08:00.600 --> 01:08:05.100 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
The family story was that he had
worked prisoners on his farm,

01:08:05.133 --> 01:08:08.533 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
that they were hardened
criminals and they had been

01:08:08.566 --> 01:08:11.566 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
put in the penitentiary
for a long time.

01:08:11.600 --> 01:08:16.066 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
And one night, a lot of the
prisoners tried to escape.

01:08:16.100 --> 01:08:21.066 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
And he, along with other farmers
who were working these men,

01:08:21.100 --> 01:08:25.666 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
tracked them down and in the
process of recapturing them,

01:08:25.700 --> 01:08:27.400 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
killed some of them.

01:08:27.433 --> 01:08:31.300 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Then sometime later, the story
came to light for me.

01:08:31.333 --> 01:08:33.900 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
It was, of course,
totally different

01:08:33.933 --> 01:08:36.600 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
from the story that I had heard.

01:08:36.633 --> 01:08:39.300 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(narrator)
Williams and Manning,
the black foreman,

01:08:39.333 --> 01:08:43.100 align:left position:12.5% line:83% size:77.5%
systematically hunted and
murdered 11 black workers.

01:08:43.133 --> 01:08:48.000 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Some were bludgeoned; others
were weighted down with chains

01:08:48.033 --> 01:08:51.266 align:left position:12.5% line:89% size:77.5%
and forced into a nearby river.

01:08:51.300 --> 01:08:55.466 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Another was made
to dig his own grave.

01:08:55.500 --> 01:08:59.866 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
They did it in the most horrific
ways that you can imagine,

01:08:59.900 --> 01:09:03.066 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
[with much emotion]
that I really can't talk about.

01:09:03.100 --> 01:09:05.866 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
I get, I get, I just get um,

01:09:05.900 --> 01:09:08.533 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
so emotional
when I think about--

01:09:08.566 --> 01:09:12.600 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
not just the fact
that these men were murdered,

01:09:12.633 --> 01:09:17.833 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
but the cruelty with which
it was carried out.

01:09:17.866 --> 01:09:21.833 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
Um, that's what hardest for me

01:09:21.866 --> 01:09:25.300 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
to imagine
and hardest to accept.

01:09:27.366 --> 01:09:31.066 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
It came to light only because
a little boy was fishing

01:09:31.100 --> 01:09:34.766 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
down by the creek where they'd
thrown some of the bodies,

01:09:34.800 --> 01:09:37.100 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
and one of the bodies came up.

01:09:37.133 --> 01:09:41.100 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(narrator)
In the spring of 1921,
Williams and Manning

01:09:41.133 --> 01:09:45.500 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
each faced an all-white jury,
in a Georgia state court.

01:09:45.533 --> 01:09:49.466 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Both were found guilty
and given life sentences.

01:09:49.500 --> 01:09:53.366 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Within a decade,
both had died in prison.

01:09:53.400 --> 01:09:58.333 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Williams was the first
Southern white man since 1877

01:09:58.366 --> 01:10:02.166 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
to be indicted
for the first-degree murder

01:10:02.200 --> 01:10:08.200 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
of an African American; it would
not happen again until 1966.

01:10:10.966 --> 01:10:15.633 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
The following year,
an expose of peonage in Florida

01:10:15.666 --> 01:10:18.300 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
inflamed readers,
because the victim,

01:10:18.333 --> 01:10:20.933 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
22-year-old Martin Tabert,
was white.

01:10:20.966 --> 01:10:24.200 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
A traveler from North Dakota,
Tabert was picked up

01:10:24.233 --> 01:10:27.500 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
in a sweep in rural Florida,
charged with vagrancy,

01:10:27.533 --> 01:10:30.033 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
and sold to a lumber company.

01:10:30.066 --> 01:10:33.633 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
He died soon after at the hands
of a brutal overseer.

01:10:33.666 --> 01:10:38.700 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(Douglas A. Blackmon)
First he whipped him on
his bare back, 30 or 40 times.

01:10:38.733 --> 01:10:42.800 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Tabert then kept lying there, so
the boss continued to whip him,

01:10:42.833 --> 01:10:46.100 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
another 30 or 40 times
with a heavy leather lash.

01:10:46.133 --> 01:10:50.100 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Tabert crawled to his feet
and the guard began

01:10:50.133 --> 01:10:54.400 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
pursuing him through the camp,
whipping him as they ran.

01:10:54.433 --> 01:10:57.933 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Finally, after almost
150 lashes, Tabert made it

01:10:57.966 --> 01:11:01.766 align:left position:12.5% line:83% size:77.5%
back to the cot that he had
in a simple cabin somewhere,

01:11:01.800 --> 01:11:04.633 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
collapsed into his bed
and never stood up again.

01:11:04.666 --> 01:11:07.200 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
(narrator)
The outcry over Tabert's death

01:11:07.233 --> 01:11:10.633 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
helped to end state leasing
in Florida.

01:11:10.666 --> 01:11:14.933 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Shortly after, in 1928,
a similar case led Alabama

01:11:14.966 --> 01:11:19.200 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
to remove its last prisoners
from the coal mines.

01:11:19.233 --> 01:11:22.333 align:left position:12.5% line:83% size:77.5%
But these changes
had little impact.

01:11:22.366 --> 01:11:26.866 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
As late as 1930, roughly half
of all African Americans,

01:11:26.900 --> 01:11:28.700 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
or 4.8 million people

01:11:28.733 --> 01:11:33.233 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
still lived in the Black Belt
region of the South.

01:11:33.266 --> 01:11:36.266 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
The vast majority were
almost certainly trapped

01:11:36.300 --> 01:11:39.833 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
in some form of exploitative
labor arrangement.

01:11:39.866 --> 01:11:43.400 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
For those African Americans
who remained in the South

01:11:43.433 --> 01:11:46.666 align:left position:12.5% line:83% size:77.5%
through the 1920's,
1930's, 1940's even,

01:11:46.700 --> 01:11:49.666 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
the conditions that they're
facing are often desperate,

01:11:49.700 --> 01:11:52.700 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
and they find themselves
more and more vulnerable

01:11:52.733 --> 01:11:57.166 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
if they try to rise up
and create some sense of protest

01:11:57.200 --> 01:12:00.800 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
against the conditions
that they face.

01:12:04.266 --> 01:12:08.466 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(narrator)
In the fall of 1932,
the United States

01:12:08.500 --> 01:12:10.766 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
underwent
a profound political change,

01:12:10.800 --> 01:12:15.300 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
marked by the election
of a new president,

01:12:15.333 --> 01:12:19.900 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Franklin Delano Roosevelt,
a distant cousin of Theodore.

01:12:19.933 --> 01:12:22.400 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
Much as Teddy Roosevelt was seen

01:12:22.433 --> 01:12:26.166 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
as something of an advocate
for African Americans,

01:12:26.200 --> 01:12:29.566 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
was a hundred times that.

01:12:29.600 --> 01:12:33.133 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
African Americans are
becoming an ever-increasingly

01:12:33.166 --> 01:12:37.233 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
important part of the democratic
political coalition.

01:12:37.266 --> 01:12:39.766 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
More African American's
are moving North,

01:12:39.800 --> 01:12:42.700 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
they're joining unions,
they're joining the NAACP

01:12:42.733 --> 01:12:44.566 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
in unprecedented numbers.

01:12:44.600 --> 01:12:47.633 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(Adam Green)
African Americans who are
involved in unions,

01:12:47.666 --> 01:12:49.933 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
members of churches,
and African Americans

01:12:49.966 --> 01:12:52.200 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
who are publishing
newspapers and magazines

01:12:52.233 --> 01:12:56.000 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
are all finding ways to bring
their influence to bear

01:12:56.033 --> 01:12:59.633 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
on the federal government
and saying do your job!

01:12:59.666 --> 01:13:02.000 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
We're talking about
constitutional rights here.

01:13:02.033 --> 01:13:05.333 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
We're talking about citizens
who are being abused here.

01:13:05.366 --> 01:13:08.300 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Do your job
or don't expect our support.

01:13:13.233 --> 01:13:17.066 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
[airplane engines roar;
loud explosions]

01:13:19.633 --> 01:13:25.300 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(narrator)
In December 1941, the Japanese
bombing of Pearl Harbor

01:13:25.333 --> 01:13:30.500 align:left position:12.5% line:83% size:77.5%
brought the United States
into the Second World War.

01:13:30.533 --> 01:13:32.900 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
[loud explosions]

01:13:32.933 --> 01:13:36.200 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(Douglas A. Blackmon)
President Roosevelt convened
a meeting of the Cabinet

01:13:36.233 --> 01:13:38.266 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
at the White House
to discuss preparations

01:13:38.300 --> 01:13:40.633 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
to fight this war
against Japan and Germany.

01:13:40.666 --> 01:13:42.466 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
The president asked
what are the things

01:13:42.500 --> 01:13:44.833 align:left position:12.5% line:83% size:77.5%
that the Japanese are
going to attack us for

01:13:44.866 --> 01:13:47.166 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
in the course of the war,
that are problematic?

01:13:47.200 --> 01:13:49.700 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Someone said
the treatment of the Negro.

01:13:49.733 --> 01:13:52.633 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(narrator)
Months earlier,
the Department of Justice

01:13:52.666 --> 01:13:55.600 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
had established
a civil rights section,

01:13:55.633 --> 01:13:59.700 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
but its focus was on labor
issues, not racial equality.

01:13:59.733 --> 01:14:04.366 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Now, the president asked his
attorney general if this unit

01:14:04.400 --> 01:14:09.000 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
might be used to demonstrate
a commitment to racial change.

01:14:09.033 --> 01:14:11.666 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
And what stands
at the intersection

01:14:11.700 --> 01:14:14.333 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
of African American rights
and labor rights?

01:14:14.366 --> 01:14:16.900 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Peonage
and involuntary servitude.

01:14:16.933 --> 01:14:20.666 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
They can't
just attack segregation head on
during World War II,

01:14:20.700 --> 01:14:23.066 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
because they still need
the white Southerners

01:14:23.100 --> 01:14:25.433 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
who are part
of the democratic coalition.

01:14:25.466 --> 01:14:29.966 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
But they did sincerely believe
that these peonage cases

01:14:30.000 --> 01:14:33.866 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
were pretty bad
and they required a response.

01:14:33.900 --> 01:14:40.166 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(woman)
"Mrs. Roosevelt, I am a colored
mother and I need your help."

01:14:40.200 --> 01:14:43.266 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(narrator)
In the decades
since the Pace trial,

01:14:43.300 --> 01:14:45.933 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
the federal government had paid
little attention

01:14:45.966 --> 01:14:49.033 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
to the continued complaints
of forced labor

01:14:49.066 --> 01:14:51.000 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
sent to the White House,

01:14:51.033 --> 01:14:54.066 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
the Department of Justice,
and the NAACP.

01:14:54.100 --> 01:14:56.066 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(woman)
"My boy answered
an advertisement

01:14:56.100 --> 01:14:58.500 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
in our Post Paper for a job.

01:14:58.533 --> 01:15:01.666 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
They are being guarded
all night by armed guards

01:15:01.700 --> 01:15:03.666 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
and not allowed to write home.

01:15:03.700 --> 01:15:06.700 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Please don't send
this letter back,

01:15:06.733 --> 01:15:09.666 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
because I'm afraid
if they find out

01:15:09.700 --> 01:15:13.966 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
I've written to you, they'll
kill my boy. Viola Cosley."

01:15:15.200 --> 01:15:17.233 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
Nearly 80 years had passed

01:15:17.266 --> 01:15:19.266 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
since the United States ratified

01:15:19.300 --> 01:15:22.200 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
the Thirteenth Amendment
to the U.S. Constitution.

01:15:24.933 --> 01:15:27.666 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
Now, in December 1941,

01:15:27.700 --> 01:15:32.533 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
President Roosevelt took steps
to finally enforce it.

01:15:32.566 --> 01:15:36.833 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Just five days
after Pearl Harbor,

01:15:36.866 --> 01:15:41.166 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Roosevelt's attorney general
issued Circular 3591.

01:15:41.200 --> 01:15:45.633 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
It said that federal attorneys
were to aggressively prosecute

01:15:45.666 --> 01:15:49.166 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
any case of involuntary
servitude or slavery,

01:15:49.200 --> 01:15:52.133 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
not only
those defined as peonage.

01:15:52.166 --> 01:15:55.266 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(Risa Goluboff)
He says, whether
they're being held there

01:15:55.300 --> 01:15:58.466 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
because of a threat of
imprisonment or out of violence,

01:15:58.500 --> 01:16:01.633 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
whatever the mechanism is that
is holding people in slavery,

01:16:01.666 --> 01:16:04.233 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
you should go after it.

01:16:04.266 --> 01:16:07.900 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
And he says this is
part of the war effort.

01:16:07.933 --> 01:16:11.633 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
These cases are important
because we need to make sure

01:16:11.666 --> 01:16:13.766 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
that African Americans feel like

01:16:13.800 --> 01:16:16.333 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
their rights
are being taken care of.

01:16:16.366 --> 01:16:19.633 align:left position:20% line:77% size:70%
(Douglas A. Blackmon)
And within months, there was
a prosecution underway

01:16:19.666 --> 01:16:22.366 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
of a man in Texas
who had been holding

01:16:22.400 --> 01:16:25.600 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
an African American worker
as a slave for almost 15 years.

01:16:25.633 --> 01:16:28.633 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
He was convicted
by a federal jury in 1942

01:16:28.666 --> 01:16:30.366 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
and went to federal prison.

01:16:30.400 --> 01:16:33.966 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
I mark that as the technical
end of slavery in America.

01:16:34.000 --> 01:16:37.533 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(narrator)
The records are incomplete,
but it's estimated

01:16:37.566 --> 01:16:41.600 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
that in the 80 years
following the Civil War,

01:16:41.633 --> 01:16:44.400 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
as many as 800,000 people

01:16:44.433 --> 01:16:48.433 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
had faced the South's
corrupt system of justice.

01:16:48.466 --> 01:16:51.033 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
Huge numbers of those arrested

01:16:51.066 --> 01:16:54.033 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
were forced
into involuntary servitude.

01:16:54.066 --> 01:16:59.666 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
Some, including Viola Cosley's
son, Marion, found freedom.

01:16:59.700 --> 01:17:03.066 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
On January 7, 1943,

01:17:03.100 --> 01:17:06.733 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
he enlisted
as a private in the U.S. Army,

01:17:06.766 --> 01:17:10.066 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
one of more than 2.5 million
African Americans

01:17:10.100 --> 01:17:14.666 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
who registered for service
during the Second World War.

01:17:20.600 --> 01:17:23.300 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Green Cottenham,
arrested in 1908,

01:17:23.333 --> 01:17:27.733 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
might have served
in the First World War,

01:17:27.766 --> 01:17:32.633 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
But by the Second World War,
he would have been in his 50s.

01:17:32.666 --> 01:17:37.766 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
But Green never made it out of
the Birmingham prison mines.

01:17:37.800 --> 01:17:41.100 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
(Douglas A. Blackmon)
We don't know the exact details

01:17:41.133 --> 01:17:45.133 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
of the life that he led
in the stockade or underground.

01:17:45.166 --> 01:17:48.066 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
But he survived 5 months
before becoming ill.

01:17:48.100 --> 01:17:51.966 align:left position:12.5% line:83% size:77.5%
He went to see the doctor
on August the second, 1908

01:17:52.000 --> 01:17:54.500 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
and never went back to the mine.

01:17:54.533 --> 01:17:57.900 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(narrator)
Thirteen days later,
Green Cottenham died.

01:17:57.933 --> 01:18:01.466 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
He is among more than
9,000 prisoners

01:18:01.500 --> 01:18:05.833 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
known to have died
while leased to industry

01:18:05.866 --> 01:18:08.766 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
by Southern states and counties.

01:18:08.800 --> 01:18:12.633 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(Tonya Groomes)
We want to think of
some of these atrocities

01:18:12.666 --> 01:18:14.333 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
as things that happened
occasionally,

01:18:14.366 --> 01:18:16.600 align:left position:12.5% line:89% size:77.5%
but you can imagine the turmoil

01:18:16.633 --> 01:18:18.866 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
if at any time
your child

01:18:18.900 --> 01:18:21.866 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
could be
picked up, never
to be seen again.

01:18:21.900 --> 01:18:26.866 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
How that would impact
a whole segment of people,

01:18:26.900 --> 01:18:31.300 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
how they view their
opportunities and their future.

01:18:31.333 --> 01:18:35.266 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(narrator)
In all likelihood
his body was dumped

01:18:35.300 --> 01:18:38.766 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
somewhere in these fields
outside the mine,

01:18:38.800 --> 01:18:43.200 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
where hundreds of other
prisoners also lie buried.

01:18:43.233 --> 01:18:48.766 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(Tonya Groomes)
This was real; these were real
people, these were real lives,

01:18:48.800 --> 01:18:51.800 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
and they make us who we are.

01:18:51.833 --> 01:18:54.033 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
What's fascinating
about Green Cottenham

01:18:54.066 --> 01:18:57.033 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
is the fact
that he isn't special.

01:18:57.066 --> 01:19:01.633 align:left position:12.5% line:83% size:77.5%
He's not well-known, he's not a
historical figure of importance,

01:19:01.666 --> 01:19:04.366 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
but that's part of the beauty.

01:19:04.400 --> 01:19:09.000 align:left position:12.5% line:83% size:77.5%
He is representative of all of
these nameless, faceless people

01:19:09.033 --> 01:19:11.166 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
who disappeared
during this time frame,

01:19:11.200 --> 01:19:14.700 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
who were deemed to be
of no value.

01:19:14.733 --> 01:19:19.000 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
And then you realize
that the value isn't in being

01:19:19.033 --> 01:19:22.033 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
necessarily important; we
all have interesting stories,

01:19:22.066 --> 01:19:26.366 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
we all have
a life story worth telling.

01:19:40.366 --> 01:19:43.400 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
(Douglas A. Blackmon)
At the end of the Civil War,

01:19:43.433 --> 01:19:46.066 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
there were
4 million freed slaves

01:19:46.100 --> 01:19:48.233 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
who lived in absolute poverty,

01:19:48.266 --> 01:19:50.433 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
uneducated,
little access to opportunity.

01:19:50.466 --> 01:19:53.800 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
We also know
that there were an equal number

01:19:53.833 --> 01:19:57.733 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
of white Americans in the South,
like members of my family,

01:19:57.766 --> 01:20:00.266 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
my ancestors, who were also
impoverished, illiterate,

01:20:00.300 --> 01:20:02.566 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
no access to opportunity.

01:20:02.600 --> 01:20:05.000 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
Over the next 75 years,

01:20:05.033 --> 01:20:07.766 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
American society performed
a miracle of sorts.

01:20:07.800 --> 01:20:11.633 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
Those 4 million whites
living in those conditions

01:20:11.666 --> 01:20:14.000 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
became 40 million
middle-class Americans

01:20:14.033 --> 01:20:16.400 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
by the beginning
of World War II.

01:20:16.433 --> 01:20:18.200 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
That's what made American
society

01:20:18.233 --> 01:20:20.533 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
the extraordinary superpower
that it is today.

01:20:20.566 --> 01:20:23.700 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
All of that though,
was done in a way

01:20:23.733 --> 01:20:25.333 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
that excluded African Americans,

01:20:25.366 --> 01:20:27.766 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
brutalized African Americans
at the same time.

01:20:27.800 --> 01:20:33.433 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(Susan Burnore)
When you see how people's lives
were truly stolen from them,

01:20:33.466 --> 01:20:35.833 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
their freedom was taken away,

01:20:35.866 --> 01:20:39.166 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
their fathers or husbands
were taken away,

01:20:39.200 --> 01:20:43.066 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
you can understand how the
difficulties and the disparities

01:20:43.100 --> 01:20:45.700 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
would persist for much longer

01:20:45.733 --> 01:20:48.800 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
than it seems
that they should have.

01:20:48.833 --> 01:20:52.266 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(Adam Green)
Without the appreciation
of this history,

01:20:52.300 --> 01:20:55.800 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
you descend into fantasies
that black people

01:20:55.833 --> 01:20:59.300 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
don't deserve equal rights
because black people

01:20:59.333 --> 01:21:02.933 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
constitutionally,
intellectually, morally,

01:21:02.966 --> 01:21:05.833 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
are not the equals of whites--
period.

01:21:05.866 --> 01:21:12.000 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(Khalil Muhammad)
We have to recognize that
in these awful ghastly tales

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of the brutalization of
black people in this country,

01:21:17.100 --> 01:21:20.133 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
the motivation for that
was profit,

01:21:20.166 --> 01:21:23.166 align:left position:12.5% line:83% size:77.5%
from small landowners
to major corporations.

01:21:23.200 --> 01:21:26.700 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
And so at the end of the day,

01:21:26.733 --> 01:21:30.600 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
that part of this country's
legacy is still with us.

01:21:33.533 --> 01:21:36.166 align:left position:10% line:77% size:80%
(Tonya Groomes)
When I think
about Green Cottenham

01:21:36.200 --> 01:21:38.233 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
and what he went through,

01:21:38.266 --> 01:21:41.333 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
I think about a quote
that comes to mind.

01:21:41.366 --> 01:21:44.700 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
It says something like,
"The arc of history is long,

01:21:44.733 --> 01:21:46.366 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
but it bends towards justice."

01:21:46.400 --> 01:21:48.266 align:left position:12.5% line:89% size:77.5%
And even though Green Cottenham

01:21:48.300 --> 01:21:50.800 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
didn't get justice in his day,

01:21:50.833 --> 01:21:55.333 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
and that so many thousands of
people who were just like Green

01:21:55.366 --> 01:21:57.900 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
didn't get their justice,
maybe now,

01:21:57.933 --> 01:22:01.133 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
through the telling of
this reality and this history,

01:22:01.166 --> 01:22:05.900 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
these individuals can receive
some measure of justice.

01:22:05.933 --> 01:22:09.200 align:left position:10% line:89% size:80%
[orchestra plays softly]

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♪ ♪

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♪ ♪

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♪ ♪

01:22:57.366 --> 01:23:03.566 align:left position:45% line:5% size:45%
♪ ♪

01:23:06.933 --> 01:23:13.066 align:left position:45% line:5% size:45%
♪ ♪

01:23:16.433 --> 01:23:22.566 align:left position:45% line:5% size:45%
♪ ♪

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♪ ♪

01:23:43.133 --> 01:23:46.800 align:left position:10% line:83% size:80%
[acoustic guitar plays in minor
tone, but bright in rhythm]

01:24:01.400 --> 01:24:03.466 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
(woman) Learn
more about

01:24:03.500 --> 01:24:05.233 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
the 80 years
following

01:24:05.266 --> 01:24:06.566 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
the Emancipation
Proclamation.

01:24:06.600 --> 01:24:08.266 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
Visit PBS.org
for exclusive

01:24:08.300 --> 01:24:10.433 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
videos, oral
histories, and

01:24:10.466 --> 01:24:12.166 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
interactive time-
line and map.

01:24:12.200 --> 01:24:14.000 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
"Slavery by
Another Name"

01:24:14.033 --> 01:24:15.900 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
is available
on DVD.

01:24:15.933 --> 01:24:18.766 align:left position:12.5% line:5% size:77.5%
The original book
is also available.

01:24:18.800 --> 01:24:20.666 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
To order,
please visit

01:24:20.700 --> 01:24:25.333 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
ShopPBS.org, or call
1-800-PLAY-PBS

01:24:29.266 --> 01:24:35.300 align:left position:47.5% line:5% size:42.5%
♪ ♪

01:24:36.300 --> 01:24:38.300 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
CC--Armour Captioning & TPT

01:24:38.333 --> 01:24:40.333 align:left position:10% line:5% size:80%
[synthesizer fanfare]