It is morning, and you wake in a cement cell to the sound of a nightstick on bars. You proceed to join a sea of primarily black faces in an assembly line as white guards with shotguns and tasers stroll between the ranks, punishing inefficient laborers.
Prison labor has a rich history in the United States.
Along with Black Codes, this program functioned to return African Americans to the plantations. Land owners would bid to receive complete control over the lives and labor of prisoners, of whom only a negligible number were white. African American laborers were whipped so severely that survivors would be crippled for life. Women were flogged, hung by their wrists, and placed in solitary confinement. Before long, journalists, community members, ministers, women's groups, and union organizers rallied against this oppressive system.