Preview
Creation Date
1910
Description
Postcard of a Bowling Green, KY “chain gang” with street cleaning tools, 1910. Southern whites enacted “black codes” to continue exploiting Black people as a cheap labor source. These laws pounced on a loophole in the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery except as a criminal punishment. The black codes required people to sign annual labor contracts for absurdly low wages, a system that forced them into cycles of debt. Failure to pay placed many debtors into chain gangs, a prison labor force that mimicked slavery.
Keywords
Bowling Green, Kentucky, African Americans, Blacks