Blackmon, Atlanta bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal, is the author of a compelling new book, "Slavery by Another Name." This book introduced me to a chapter of history I did not know. Douglas Blackmon says it happened hundreds of thousands of times in Alabama alone. It would be appalling if it happened once. This was September 1901, 36 years after the end of the Civil War. For all intents and purposes, John Davis was John Pace's slave. A wealthy landowner, John Pace, paid the alleged $40 debt and a $35 fine in exchange for Davis' mark - Davis was illiterate - on a contract binding him to work 10 months at any task Pace demanded. He was arrested that night and summarily convicted. This was news to Davis.īut what Davis said did not matter. The white man, Robert Franklin, was a constable.
"Nigger," he demanded, "have you got any money?" This is how John Davis became a slave: He was walking one evening from the train depot in Goodwater, Ala., when a white man appeared in the road. And the consequences of even the most trivial of offenses were enormous. It was almost impossible for a black man in the South, in the rural South, in the early 20th century not to be at risk of arrest at almost any time.
And there were rafts of laws that effectively criminalized black life. But by the time Green Cottenham grew to adulthood in the first years of the 20th century, this whole new regime of laws had been put in place that essentially turned the American justice system on its head.Īnd it became an instrument of injustice, instead of a system of justice. They were largely still impoverished, but authentic freedom, separating themselves from the white families that had controlled their lives. They had a certain amount of economic freedom. He experienced some of the - some of that period of time in which you had huge numbers of black people who voted. Green Cottenham was the son of two former slaves in Alabama.
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