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US
lawmakers
unveil
anti-slavery
constitutional
amendment
By
AARON
MORRISON
apnews.com
NEW
YORK -
National
lawmakers
introduced
a joint
resolution
Wednesday
aimed at
striking
language
from the
U.S.
Constitution
that
enshrines
a form
of
slavery
in
America’s
foundational
documents.
The
resolution,
spearheaded
and
supported
by
Democratic
members
of the
House
and
Senate,
would
amend
the 13th
Amendment’s
ban on
chattel
enslavement
to
expressly
prohibit
involuntary
servitude
as a
punishment
for
crime.
As
ratified,
the
original
amendment
has
permitted
exploitation
of labor
by
convicted
felons
for over
155
years
since
the
abolition
of
slavery.
The
13th
Amendment
“continued
the
process
of a
white
power
class
gravely
mistreating
Black
Americans,
creating
generations
of
poverty,
the
breakup
of
families
and this
wave of
mass
incarceration
that we
still
wrestle
with
today,”
Sen.
Jeff
Merkley
of
Oregon
told The
Associated
Press
ahead of
the
resolution’s
introduction.
A
House
version
is led
by
outgoing
Rep.
William
Lacy
Clay, of
St.
Louis,
who said
the
amendment
“seeks
to
finish
the job
that
President
(Abraham)
Lincoln
started.”
It
would
“eliminate
the
dehumanizing
and
discriminatory
forced
labor of
prisoners
for
profit
that has
been
used to
drive
the
over-incarceration
of
African
Americans
since
the end
of the
Civil
War,”
Clay
said.
In
the
Senate,
the
resolution
has
Sens.
Bernie
Sanders
of
Vermont,
Ed
Markey
of
Massachusetts
and
Chris
Van
Hollen
of
Maryland
signed
on as
co-sponsors.
“This
change
to the
13th
Amendment
will
finally,
fully
rid our
nation
of a
form of
legalized
slavery,”
Van
Hollen
said in
an
emailed
statement.
Constitutional
amendments
are rare
and
require
approval
by
two-thirds
of the
House
and
Senate,
as well
as
ratification
by
three-quarters
of state
legislatures.
Should
the
proposal
fail to
move out
of
committee
in the
remaining
weeks of
the
current
Congress,
Merkley
said he
hoped to
revive
it next
year.
The
effort
has been
endorsed
by more
than a
dozen
human
rights
and
social
justice
organizations,
including
The
Sentencing
Project,
the
Anti-Recidivism
Coalition
and
Color of
Change.
“It
is long
past
time
that
Congress
excise
this
language
from the
U.S.
Constitution
which
should
begin to
put an
end to
the
abusive
practices
derived
from
it,”
said
Laura
Pitter,
deputy
director
of the
U.S.
program
at Human
Rights
Watch,
which
also
endorsed
the
amendment.
The
proposed
amendment
comes
nearly
one
month
after
voters
in
Nebraska
and Utah
approved
initiatives
amending
their
state
constitutions
to
remove
language
that
allows
slavery
and
involuntary
servitude
as
criminal
punishments.
In 2018,
Colorado
was
among
the
first
U.S.
states
to
remove
such
language
by
ballot
measure.
Although
nearly
half of
state
constitutions
do not
mention
human
bondage
or
prison
labor as
punishment,
just
over 20
states
still
include
such
clauses
in
governing
documents
that
date
back to
the 19th
century
abolition
of
slavery.
In
Merkley’s
Oregon,
voters
in 2002
approved
the
elimination
of
constitutional
language
that
prohibited
Black
Americans
from
living
in the
state
unless
they
were
enslaved.
He
said the
movement
toward a
federal
amendment
is “kind
of
saying
to the
world,
let’s
not
forget
this big
piece of
injustice
that’s
sitting
squarely
in the
middle
of our
Constitution,
as we
wrestle
with
criminal
justice
reform.”
Many
Americans
will
recognize
modern-day
prison
labor as
chain
gangs
deployed
from
prison
facilities
for
agricultural
and
infrastructure
work.
The
prevalence
of
prison
labor
has been
largely
accepted
as a
means
for
promoting
rehabilitation,
teaching
trade
skills
and
reducing
idleness
among
prisoners.
But
the
practice
has a
much
darker
history.
Following
the
abolition
of
slavery,
Southern
states
that
lost the
literal
backbone
of their
economies
began
criminalizing
formerly
enslaved
Black
men and
women
for
offenses
as petty
as
vagrancy
or
having
unkempt
children.
This
allowed
legal
re-enslavement
of
African
Americans,
who were
no
longer
seen as
sympathetic
victims
of
inhumane
bondage,
said
Michele
Goodwin,
a
constitutional
law
professor
at the
University
of
California,
Irvine.
“These
people
became
criminals,
and it
became
very
difficult
for many
abolitionists
to use
the same
kinds of
emotional
messaging
about
the
humanity
of these
individuals,”
Goodwin
said.
Today,
incarcerated
workers,
many of
them
making
pennies
on the
dollar,
work in
plants,
manufacturing
clothing,
assembling
furniture
and even
battling
wildfires
across
the
U.S.,
much of
it to
the
benefit
of large
corporations,
governments
and
communities
where
they’ve
historically
been
unwelcome
upon
release.
Researchers
have
estimated
the
minimum
annual
value of
prison
labor
commodities
at $2
billion,
derived
largely
through
a system
of
convict
leasing
that
leaves
these
workers
without
the
legal
protections
and
benefits
that
Americans
are
otherwise
entitled
to.
And
while
prison
work is
largely
optional
for the
2.2
million
individuals
incarcerated
in the
U.S.,
it’s a
grave
mistake
to
disassociate
their
labor
from the
original
intent
of the
penal
system,
Goodwin
said.
“Your
freedom
has been
taken
away —
that’s
the
punishment
that
society
has
assigned,”
she
said.
“The
punishment
is not
that you
do slave
work,
that is
unpaid
labor or
barely
paid
labor.”
____
Morrison
is a
member
of the
AP’s
Race and
Ethnicity
team.
Follow
him on
Twitter:
https://www.twitter.com/aaronlmorrison.
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