Fwd: Slavery by another name, movie March 30
Gail Acree
From: Emmanuel Mennonite Church <gnvm...@bellsouth.net>
Date: Fri, Mar 25, 2016 at 2:29 PM
Subject: Slavery by another name, movie March 30
To: Eve MacMaster <eve...@aol.com>
mENNONITE mEETING hoUSE
wEDNESDAY, March 30, 7 PM
Slavery by another name U.S, 2012. 90 minutes
From a review by Kinnedy Broughton, participant in a program for
Chicago high school journalism students
Convict leasing, sharecropping, peonage—
these were some of the many forms of slavery forced upon African-American people
after being freed through Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.
Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Douglas Blackmon,
“Slavery by Another Name” shines a light on the injustices occurring after African Americans were freed,
specifically in the South.
Four million slaves were freed by the 14th Amendment, with no one in charge but themselves.
Separated families were reuniting, spouses were remarrying, all African-Americans were hopeful for the future.
The war had devastated the South's economic system.
White investments, family businesses, agriculture, and the system of slavery were falling apart.
Then 15th Amendment came along, allowing African Americans to vote, serve on juries, legally purchase and own guns.
This disturbed the white majority.
The documentary shows that by 1874 African-Americans began to receive less help from the federal government.
States created silly laws targeted toward African Americans.
It could mean a major prison sentence to speak loudly around white women, walk along railroad tracks, or steal a pig.
Within five years these laws became federal felonies for black people.
Only 10 percent of convictions were against white males.
That is where convict leasing was born.
When John T. Milner, known as “the father of Industrialization,” found that black labor was extremely profitable,
he forced convicts to coal mines, where whipping and mental abuse occurred and diseases spread from drinking dirty water.
Some never saw daylight again.
“This is a white man's government,” read a propaganda sign; they planned to keep it that way.
Reenactments and news headlines, letters, and satirical propaganda provide visual evidence backing up statements given in interviews.
Industrialized slavery came in various other forms, as this documentary shows.
Sharecropping was an entrance with no exit.
Blacks agreed to help with the crops of white landowners for a period of time,
but if they attempted to leave they were arrested.
Peonage, also known as debt slavery, was a system
where white employers made African-Americans work for a certain amount of time until their “debts” were paid off.
It was either continue working or they'd end their lives.
People were namelessly murdered and dumped in fields and lakes.
These legalized forms of slavery kept millions of African Americans in the South,
their rights and their freedom undermined by fear and violence.
This documentary reveals more than a textbook.
It's a learning experience for people of all ages who did not live through the injustices of the 1800s -- early 1990s.
The message is clear that during that time African Americans were not free.
The documentary exposes us to how black criminalization was born, and how prison systems were set up to become a legal form of slavery.
This documentary reeled me in, leaving me on the edge of my seat throughout.
It triggers emotions and inspires people, specifically African Americans, to work hard with what we have and cherish it—
our ancestors shed blood and tears so that we could have the rights and resources we utilize today.