Slavery in the U.S.?

[livius drusus]

Speaking of the direct descent from private ownership slavery to state-owned prison slavery, yet again the period evidence makes no bones whatsoever about the connection. Here's an article about notorious hellhole Angola prison in Louisiana donating a historic guard tower and prison cell to the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture.

He said museum officials particularly wanted an item from Angola’s Camp A because it’s the oldest part of the prison. Camp A no longer houses inmates.

The land on which Angola is situated used to be the site of an old plantation. The land was bought by Samuel James, who in 1869 was awarded the lease to run the state’s penitentiary.

James, who had attained the rank of major in the Confederate Army, housed inmates at what used to be old slave quarters, which later became Camp A.

Of course it did.

[livius drusus]

Ava DuVernay has a new documentary called 13TH about how the 13th Amendment both ended slavery and provided a mechanism for its continuation in the form of prison labour leading to our current nightmare of mass incarceration for profit. It debuts on Netflix on October 7th. Here's the trailer.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Listening now, and this is a really good speech about the removal of various Confederate monuments.

Mayor Mitch Landrieu's full address on the...

"There is a difference between remembrance of history and the reverence of it."

[Jerome]

The Taliban said the same kinds of things and did the same kinds of things when they took over Afghanistan..

[lisarea]

Oh, thank you, Kamilah. I read that speech yesterday and forgot to post it, so for the subset of people who have KH on ignore but not me, or if you just want to read it at work, here is the transcript.

It's really, really good, and I think we all need a little more eloquence in our lives right now.