From Slavery to Prison Labor: How U.S. Governments Have Officially Supported Systems of Racialized Unfreedom

How America reinvented slavery through law and labor

Convict Leasing, 1903 — John L. Spivak, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The United States is often celebrated as a nation founded on liberty. Yet, its history reveals a long pattern of governments — federal, state, and local — officially sanctioning systems of racialized unfreedom. From the Constitution’s compromises on slavery to the Black Codes, Jim Crow segregation, convict leasing, debt peonage, and today’s prison labor programs, state power has repeatedly been used to extract labor, deny rights, and reinforce racial hierarchies. Tim Scott told us “America isn’t a racist country,” when in truth, it has only been a racist country, adopting slavery and continually transforming it to exist after every attempt to end it.

This essay traces that continuum across six stages:

1. Enslavement under law
2. Black Codes after emancipation
3. Jim Crow segregation
4. Convict leasing
5. Debt peonage
6. Contemporary prison labor programs

By examining each stage, we see how governments did not merely tolerate but actively constructed and maintained systems of coerced labor and…