@AlliFlowers 'The 13th amendment's exception permitting the continued enslavement of people with criminal convictions, however, enabled the South to continue exploiting the labor of Black people, & many states seized that opportunity.
In addition to passing Black Codes that criminalized acts like unemployment & public assembly when committed by freedmen, many Southern states also passed laws authorizing the leasing of the larger, predominately Black convict populations these statutes created.'
@AlliFlowers
I've always wondered what kind of country/world we'd be living in if Reconstruction hadn't come apart at the seams.