Miriam Harrison 2/13/12 Extra Credit PBS- Slavery by another name The documentary that came on PBS was

about life for African Americans after slavery. And their struggles that they faced during segregation convict leasing and share cropping. After the 13th amendment was past ending slavery in 1865, blacks believed that they were finally going to free and released from oppression and maybe be able to gain their rightful place in society. But little did they know their freedom would cost them much more strife then relief. The documentary talked about how different familys ancestors faced a lot of hardships post slavery. And how some familys ancestors were the oppressing during that those times. During the 19 century, the documentary expressed that blacks faced a lot of oppression and struggles. After slavery, the populations in the south grew dramatically due to freed slaves entering society. With this increase in population, whites started to believe that the crime rate increased, thus connecting crime as a result of blacks entering society. Black criminality was a huge factor that crippled blacks acceptance into urban America. With the criminality, whites believed that blacks did not have the capacity or were capable of integrating into society. With that said whites did everything in their power to make sure blacks new their place in society with them being inferior to the whites. To help insure this, segregation was the first step in keeping black people oppressed. Then came convict leasing in which prison officials would privately sell convicts (mostly being black men) to mines and have them work all hours of the day in really bad working conditions. It was basically slavery but institutionalized. Slavery was the main income for the United States and when it ended white America needed a new source, the reason why they started this convict leasing. This production brought in a lot of money, and the people who were running it were able to use these convicts as they pleased. They would treat these men as if they were nothing. Their value become less than that of a slave because it was not in a slaves owners best interest to kill his slave but if a convict leaser lost or killed his worker then he could just go get another one. To lease a convict it could be as cheat as 9 dollars a month. This documentary opened my eyes to a lot of new things about slavery and life after slavery for African Americans in the south. Before this documentary I had no idea about convict leasing or share cropping. I found this documentary to be very informative.