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

Written by American journalist Douglas Blackmon, Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II (2008) is a thorough account of the forms of slavery via economic disempowerment that continued throughout much of the South in the decades after the Civil War up to World War II. The book addresses themes such as The Intentional Revival of Slavery, The Toxic Mix of White Mythology and Naïve Racism, and Challenges of Confronting the Past. Slavery by Another Name was a New York Times bestseller and won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 2009.

Content Warning: This guide discusses slavery and anti-Black racism that are present in the source text. The original text uses outdated terms regarding race that are updated in the guide unless they appear in a direct quotation from the text. SuperSummary supports person-first language regarding enslaved or formerly enslaved individuals, but the guide retains the text’s use of the term “slaves” to facilitate discussing the policies surrounding the abolition and reconstruction of slavery in the South.

Summary

Through a partnership of corporations, state governments, local sheriffs, farmers, and judges, Black men throughout the South were routinely arrested on false or trivial charges like vagrancy—a crime levied usually against Black men for being unemployed—or for speaking to a white woman in a way white people found questionable. After being arrested, the men were sentenced to a term of hard labor and charged with unsanctioned fees or fines to the sheriff, judges, witnesses, and other individuals. An individual or a large corporation—like US Steel—would agree to pay off the prisoner’s debt in exchange for working in their mines or on their farms. The Black men were then required to work under harsh conditions producing iron or picking cotton for major companies as unpaid convict labor. They faced abuse and torture from guards and fellow workers, and they were effectively re-enslaved until the company paid off their fines, which could take years. This system of “neo-slavery” continued in various forms all the way up to World War II, challenging the usual assumption written in history books that all African Americans were free after the Civil War.

Although Black individuals were granted political rights as citizens in the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, they were not treated as equal to white individuals after emancipation. Even Northerners who wanted to guarantee equal rights for all citizens still largely saw white people as superior to other races. Openly racist leaders opposed measures to ensure Black political enfranchisement, such as the right to vote. Even African Americans who were technically free—such as sharecroppers—lived under white oppression in the South, limiting their ability to move and seek employment or demand better compensation. White mob violence and the threat of white supremacy organizations like the Ku Klux Klan dominated the headlines and put many Black Americans in a constant danger.

Blackmon’s precisely detailed account reveals how far white mythology has seeped into the United States’ interpretation of history by revealing this largely forgotten chapter of American history. He challenges historians who characterize neo-slavery as an inevitable result of the Civil War and instead presents these events as results of decisions motivated by racist beliefs and the desire for financial profit. Whereas other works researching the Jim Crow era of racial segregation have focused on just the government’s failure to ensure civil rights for African Americans, Blackmon targets private business for upholding socioeconomic injustice in the US.