13th Amendment. Used with permission of Benjamin Slyngstad.
In teaching about the wildfires in Los Angeles, include the role of incarcerated labor. The cartoon by Benjamin Slyngstad can serve as a discussion prompt.
As reported on Democracy Now!,
Nearly a thousand of the firefighters deployed to help contain the devastating fires [in and around Los Angeles] are incarcerated. They have been working around the clock while earning as little as between $5.80 to $10.24 a day.
In the book and film, Slavery by Another Name, Douglas Blackmon explains how many businesses and police departments used the 13th Amendment exception for people who committed a crime to continue to exploit Black labor and knowledge. Blackmon was interviewed on this July 11, 2008 segment of Democracy Now! below.
Many teachers use the documentary 13th by award-winning filmmaker Ava DuVernay to examine mass incarceration through the lens of race. The film includes the history of convict leasing, the Jim Crow-era disenfranchisement and lynching of African Americans, the war on drugs, and the prison-industrial complex.
Find resources below to teach about Reconstruction and find a curated collection of recommended books for pre–K-12 on incarceration in Teaching for Change’s Social Justice Books.
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