Monday, June 08, 2020

An unpleasant, necessary read.


Douglas A. Blackmon's Slavery by Another Name chronicles the use of vagrancy and related laws against African-Americans in the Jim Crow South to provide forced labor for every imaginable economic purpose, including industrial work.



I have not finished this book because it is harrowing. But I will, in part because it shows how social systems can warp the law to suit gruesome purposes. And also because history has to be honestly-told, and in full context.

And when I do finish, I'll have an in-depth review.


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