THE COLORED CONVENTIONS AND THE CARCERAL STATES

SOUTHERN CONVENTIONS’ PROTEST

The system of convict leasing began in Georgia in 1868 when railroad barons’ demand for even cheaper labor and state repression of Black rights coalesced. Shortly after, even those who ran penitentiaries saw that it was a barbaric system. [1] As the Black codes ensured that penitentiaries would be filled with Black prisoners, the very function of penitentiaries transformed. They were no longer institutions of reformatory disciplines; rather, they served as the state’s primary tool of repression and institution of slavery. Black activists and writers in the South vehemently condemned the system. The Colored Conventions movement did more than this, as they organized, petitioned, and warned the Black public against crime hunters. In 1908, the convict lease system ended and was replaced by the chain gang system, an equally, if not crueler form of routine torture and servitude. The turn of the century saw the empowerment of Black women activists. African American club women with connections to the Colored Conventions movement mobilized against the chain gang system. (Read about Black women reformers here.)

The Storymap below shows some of the conventions in the South that discussed the prison system. Because many convention minutes are still unavailable, this map does not present all the Southern conventions that tackled the subject.