The United States abolished slavery in 1863 with the 13th Amendment, but this action did not coincide with the opening of all occupations to liberated Black workers. On the contrary, federal officials within the Freedmen’s Bureau—established by the federal government in part to help formerly enslaved people transition to freedom—encouraged Black people to stay in the South and enter into contracts doing the same work for the families that previously enslaved them. After Reconstruction, state and local governments added to these efforts by enacting Jim Crow laws, which codified the role of Black people in the Southern economy and society. While some former slaves did become sharecroppers, others did not wan to work in the plantations considering the working conditions.
|
Southern lawmakers passed laws to make sure Black people stayed in the plantations using the 13th Amendment loophole. According to the 13th Amendment people who committed a crime could be held in bondage and forced labor. For example, In South Carolina, a law prohibited Black people from holding any occupation other than farmer or servant unless they paid an annual tax of $10 to $100. This provision hit free Black people already living in Charleston and former slave artisans especially hard. In both states, Black people were given heavy penalties for vagrancy, including forced plantation labor in some cases.
Additionally, some states limited the type of property that Black people could own, while virtually all the former Confederate states passed strict vagrancy and labor contract laws, as well as so-called “anti-enticement” measures designed to punish anyone who offered higher wages to a Black laborer already under contract.
If people broke these laws or abandoned their jobs after signing a labor contract, they could be arrested and, thanks to the already mentioned loophole in the 13th Amendment, be forced back into unpaid labor on white plantations. Lawmakers also sought to prevent Black people from migrating in search of safety and economic opportunity. They enacted emigrant-agent laws restricting interstate labor recruiters from encouraging or financing the relocation of Black workers or from posting advertisements in predominantly Black communities for distant job openings. To see a more detailed account of the effects of mass incarceration go to the Netflix documentary posted below.
During the mid-20th century, technological advancements reduced the demand for farm labor and domestic work in the South. These changes, combined with discriminatory U.S. Department of Agriculture policies, rampant lynchings, and Ku Klux Klan terror, led to Slavery and Jim Crow concentrated workers of color in chronically undervalued occupations. Due to systematic inequality and lack of economic opportunity, thousands of black households in the South had to flee north and west. As a result, the United States experienced a rapid decline in the number of Black farm operators and farm and domestic workers. However, Black workers remained overrepresented in low-wage service jobs. Meanwhile, the continued devaluation of domestic and agricultural vocations and the accompanying search for lower-wage laborers of color soon led to a high concentration of Asian American and Latino workers in domestic and agricultural occupations; this remains the case today. Occupational segregation and the persistent devaluation of workers of color are a direct result of intentional government policy.