ESPECIALLY FOR POOR BLACKS
During the times of slavery, white people knew that black people knew their place, knew the pecking order. Blacks and whites moved one another freely. The white beatings and killings of blacks was limited by white fear of economic loss....up to a point.
Once slavery was over, white people were afraid of revenge and competition. Immoral laws and the terrorism of lynching were used by white people to keep black people in their place. Black and white worlds became very separate under Jim Crow.
However, whenever white people needed free labor during this period, black people would be arrested for things like not having a job or loitering, put into the prison system, then the prisoners would be hired out to work on white plantations come crop gathering time.
A prison famous for running just like a plantation was called Parchman Farm. And it continued to be run just that way through the early 1970s.
Some of the Freedom Riders wound up at Parchman Farm during The Civil Rights Movement
PRISON WORK SONG
FROM THE MOVIE OF THE AUGUST WILSON PLAY
"THE PIANO LESSON"
SNIPPET OF A REAL PRISON WORK SONG
During the times of slavery, white people knew that black people knew their place, knew the pecking order. Blacks and whites moved one another freely. The white beatings and killings of blacks was limited by white fear of economic loss....up to a point.
Once slavery was over, white people were afraid of revenge and competition. Immoral laws and the terrorism of lynching were used by white people to keep black people in their place. Black and white worlds became very separate under Jim Crow.
However, whenever white people needed free labor during this period, black people would be arrested for things like not having a job or loitering, put into the prison system, then the prisoners would be hired out to work on white plantations come crop gathering time.
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| The Big House at"Parchman Farm" another name for The Mississippi State Penitentiary |
A prison famous for running just like a plantation was called Parchman Farm. And it continued to be run just that way through the early 1970s.
Some of the Freedom Riders wound up at Parchman Farm during The Civil Rights Movement
PRISON WORK SONG
FROM THE MOVIE OF THE AUGUST WILSON PLAY
"THE PIANO LESSON"
SNIPPET OF A REAL PRISON WORK SONG
HISTORY BOOK:
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