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How the 13th Amendment didnt really abolish slavery, but let it live on in U.S. prisons
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of New York Daily News


New York Daily News, September 21, 2016
Posted: October 2nd, 2016
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/king-13th-amendment...

The 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution did not end slavery. In fact, it is the first time the word "slavery" was ever mentioned in the Constitution and it is in this amendment where it is ... given the constitutional protection that has maintained the practice of American slavery in various forms to this very day. It is why, right now, the largest prison strike in American history is about to enter its third week - the men and women inside of those prisons are effectively slaves. Their free or nearly free labor represents, according to Alice Speri, a $2 billion a year industry that employs nearly 900,000 prisoners while paying them a few cents an hour in some states, and nothing at all in others. In addition to work for private companies, prisoners also cook, clean, and work on maintenance and construction in the prisons themselves forcing officials to pay staff to carry out those tasks in response to work stoppages. They cannot run these facilities without us, organizers wrote ahead of the strike. We will not only demand the end to prison slavery, we will end it ourselves by ceasing to be slaves. The entire 13th Amendment ... is just 47 words long. About a third of those words aren't about ending slavery, but are shockingly about how and when slavery could receive a wink and a nod to continue. In essence, the 13th Amendment both banned and justified slavery in one fell swoop. Slavery is legal in prisons.

Note: It's strange to note that very few major media have given any coverage to this important story. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in government and in the prison system.


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