Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II

Blackmon discusses two major Supreme Court decisions that symbolized how Black Americans were viewed legally.

The case of Plessy v. Ferguson justified segregated public facilities for Black Americans and white Americans. This ruling had a profound, lasting effect on White Southerners. They believed that the nation’s highest court endorsed the separation of races and that, as long as white people pretended to leave Black people’s legal rights intact, they can force a Black person into servitude for however long they want. The court case symbolized of the façade of racial progress and the pre-eminence of white supremacy during this era, leading African Americans to deeply mistrust the legal and judicial systems for decades afterward.

Nearly 60 years later, Brown v. Board of Education toppled Plessy v. Ferguson when the Supreme Court ruled that segregated school facilities were unconstitutional. This decision symbolized the beginning of the end of the reign of racial terror that dominated the Jim Crow era.

The act of being whipped serves as a through line from plantation-era slavery to the era of forced convict labor. While slaves were punished with whippings on plantations, whipping eventually represents the everyday brutality of the new system of slavery. Because convict laborers were seen as easily replaceable, they could be whipped dozens of times for minor infractions without worry for their physical ability to continue working.