Typical. And disgusting. From New Orleans. Sanitation workers aren’t used to being on the back of pickup trucks. But that’s where some were Friday after they say they were fired for making
On December 1, 1868, a young black former Union soldier named John Henry was among a group of convicts sent from Richmond to West Virginia to blast a railroad tunnel, where he would soon die. Everyone
The poorly named Wise County, Virginia has a novel solution to its opioid problem. Since it doesn’t want to do anything to help these people and doesn’t want to pay to put them in prison,
Ha ha ha, of course not. Those workers could strike and stuff. Nope, prison labor is way better! Now, look, I know that the prison system is terrible for prisoners around the world. Some of these bran
When I wrote my New York Times op-ed in August about the prison strike, I was mildly surprised it was accepted so easily because I figured that someone who was actually an expert in prison labor would
I have a piece in the New York Times on the prison strike and the historical context of white coercion of black labor that has never ended. The Civil War may have ended chattel slavery, but the 13th A
On October 4, 1978, nine Ellis Prison inmates in east Texas went on strike against the unpaid labor they had to do every day, refusing to pick cotton in hard labor. This small action, coordinated by a
On July 20, 1891, militia forces guarding a stockade at a mine near Briceville, Tennessee surrendered to miners during Coal Creek War to keep convict laborers from competing with free miners. This was