-
Convict leasing in the south in
this period becomes a new way
-
of racial control among white southerners
attempting to limit African American
-
economic independence and
freedom in general.
-
And what that means is that
state officials would sell
-
the labor of an African America
prisoner to a private contractor.
-
The terms of that agreement
usually involved a period of time,
-
say ten days for a very
minor sentence to up to a year.
-
And in exchange for getting the labor
of the prisoner and taking full custody
-
of the prisoner by the private contractor,
the state would receive revenue.
-
What that meant in terms of what
convict leasing involved was that
-
African Americans would work in any
industry, whether working for
-
a private farmer, whether it was in
a brick making factory, a coal mine,
-
any number of business concerns and
the business owner would have
-
absolute dominion over the Black person
for the period of time of the lease.
-
But once you were in the system,
you could spend the rest of
-
your life there and that was a direct
consequence of the reality of being
-
a convict lease and having to fight
literally to survive day by day
-
in incredibly brutal conditions.
