One makes a desultory attempt to start up a work song, but no one else joins in. Perhaps they're too busy looking forward to their lunch of bread smeared with jam. Chain gangs are meant to be unpleasant, and this one is succeeding. We think it's stupid. Civilians, on the other hand, seem fascinated by the sight of men in chains.
Cars stop along the side of the road, and mothers with babies get out to watch.
A Limestone County school bus passes by, and the children press their faces to the window. I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang. By the late 1940s, the gangs were well on their way to joining stocks and public floggings in penological limbo. Thus there was little in the way of models when Alabama Governor Fob James decided last year to revive the practice. No failure to communicate here.