13th Amendment. Used with permission of Benjamin Slyngstad.
In teaching about the wildfires in Los Angeles, a key story to include is the role of incarcerated labor. The cartoon by Benjamin Slyngstad can serve as a prompt for discussion.
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. For more on how California’s incarcerated firefighting program works, we speak to investigative journalist Keri Blakinger, who is herself formerly incarcerated, and who recently had to evacuate her home in Los Angeles. [Listen to segment.]
In the book and film, Slavery by Another Name, Douglas Blackmon explains how many businesses and local police departments used the exception for people who committed a crime to continue to exploit Black labor and knowledge. Blackmon is 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 for Teaching for Change’s Social Justice Books.
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