News flash: Slavery didn’t end after the Civil War. Thanks to the massive loophole of the 13th Amendment, it’s still going strong - in the form of forced prison labor all across America. We take you to Louisiana, the world’s incarceration leader. Local historian Eric Seiferth tells about Louisiana’s barbaric prison labor system, where inmates are forced to toil in the same fields worked by enslaved people over 150 years ago. We’re talking reparations? Let’s start by actually ending slavery in America!
SHOW NOTES
Guest: Eric Seiferth
Eric Seiferth is a curator and historian with the Historic New Orleans Collection. His extensive research was instrumental in creating Captive State: Louisiana and the Making of Mass Incarceration, an exhibit examining the roots of Louisiana’s dubious distinction as the incarceration capital of the world.
More on Louisiana's slave labor system:
- Promise of Justice Initiative – New Orleans-based group fighting to stop enslaved labor and other atrocities of the Prison Industrial Complex.
- Derrick Fruga's Return Home - Short film about formerly incarcerated man whose nearly two decades of forced labor earned him just enough money to buy his mother a bouquet of flowers.
- Visiting Room Project – Website lets you sit face-to-face with people serving life without parole at Angola Prison, telling their stories in their own words. The only collection of its kind with over 100 interviews.
- Angola Prisoners Lawsuit
More on mass incarceration and forced prison labor:
- “13th” – Oscar-nominated documentary on our history of forced prison labor and the 13th Amendment loophole.
- Equal Justice Initiative – One of America’s leading advocacy groups fighting for justice in the penal system.
- California Voters Reject Anti-Slavery Proposition
- ACLU graphic of America’s coast-to-coast slave wages for prison labor
More on “Captive State” and HNOC:
- Captive State: Louisiana and the Making of Mass Incarceration - exhibit website
- Historic New Orleans Collection website
HIGHLIGHTS OF EPISODE
[5:45] Forced labor in the Louisiana prison system
[9:01] Through-line from slavery at Angola plantation to slave labor at Angola Prison today
[19:28] Louisiana eliminates parole for life sentences and adds life-term offenses
[23:19] Louisiana’s impact on brutal practices across U.S. prisons
[28:40] Tension in New Orleans between horrific oppression and creative resistance
[33:48] Importance of shining a light on our true history and organizing for reparations
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