Reaction Paper # 1: The Convict Lease System and its Parallels to the New Jim Crow

574 Words2 Pages

Today, many contend that Americans are currently living in a post-racial society, in which slavery, discrimination, prejudice, and an overall racial hierarchy are obsolete. They assume that with the election of the first African American President, Barack Obama, a greater number and acceptance of interracial marriages, affirmative action, and less overt signs of discrimination, America is essentially in an “Age of Colorblindness” (Alexander, 2012). On the contrary, authors Douglas Blackmon and Michelle Alexander, argue that there is more to American history than what meets the eye. Published in 2008, Slavery By Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II written by Douglas Blackmon is a non-fiction that takes a closer look at the convict lease system, in which forced labor of African American men and women continued even after slavery was made illegal in the United States. In both this work and his documentary film of the same name, Blackmon maintains that slavery did not end with the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment and continued well ...

Open Document