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Thesis For The 13th Amendment

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The 13th amendment to the US constitution abolished slavery; once put in place in 1865, blacks were free people in the United States, unless they were criminals. The documentary 13th does an amazing job putting forth the correlation between mass incarceration and race. It explores the loophole within the 13th amendment which states that slavery shall not exist within the United States, unless of punishment for a crime. This allows for criminals to be “slaves” within the prison system. The documentary follows slavery and oppression of African-Americans from the time of working in the fields, to current times, where one in every 3 black men are expected to be incarcerated at some point in their lifetime. When the 4 million slaves of the United States were freed in 1865, a void was left within the US economy. This void and need for economic regeneration lead to the …show more content…

Once slavery ended, black incrimination started. Incarceration of people helped fill the void in the economy. Following the civil war African-Americans were arrested and imprisoned in masses; when imprisoned they were forced to work, as the south needed to improve their economy after the abolishment of slavery. Unfortunately, this effectively made them “slaves” once again. In this post civil war world, African-Americans were frequently arrested for very minor type crimes, or sometimes wrongfully arrested by corrupt officers and government officials who wanted to keep african-americans oppressed. Of course, this was not the goal of every single police officer, but it was a widespread issue. Starting in this era, and I would arguing continuing into today’s times, African-Americans were wrongly arrested, incarcerated, beaten, and

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