“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
So, the South created the crime of loitering – which meant that any person of color who was not employed by a white person, was arrested, convicted of loitering and, unable to pay the associated fine, was sent as a slave to work on a plantation until the fine was paid. Not only that, in some cases, the plantation owner could bill the state for the housing costs of the criminals.
Also, this “conviction” deprived people of color of the right to vote, as well as disqualifying them from many forms of employment. This practice lasted until well after World War II. In my opinion, this is why schools need to actually teach the truth, instead of the alternate facts, whitewashed current versions of the “truth.”
As the Emancipation Proclamation freed slave in the States of Rebellion, not in the Northern slave states, where Lincoln did have jurisdiction – Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland and Missouri – I would really like the current day Republicans to stop using these two documents to try and convince people with color that we should be grateful to the Republican party for our freedom.
All these two documents did was to allow slavery to continue, just under a different name, all the while continuing the “illusion” of freedom. Why we needed a Civil War, and the continuing Civil Rights movement to obtain freedom in the Land where “All Men Are Created Equal” in the first place is the epitome of hypocrisy in and of itself.
Deborah White is a resident of Doylestown.
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