

Slavery Lasted Until Pearl Harbor - kentbrew
http://weeklysift.com/2014/03/31/slavery-lasted-until-pearl-harbor/

======
larrymcp
The documentary is really well-made, very interesting to watch.

[http://www.pbs.org/tpt/slavery-by-another-
name/watch/](http://www.pbs.org/tpt/slavery-by-another-name/watch/)

~~~
PhantomGremlin
If you don't have time to watch the documentary, just read the article. It
only takes 5 minutes, and you'll probably learn something about American
history.

TL;DR: Basically, while widespread slavery ended after the Civil War, what
replaced it for an estimated 150,000 blacks (rather than the 4,000,000 blacks
at the start of the Civil War) was punishment for crimes such as "vagrancy".

You could be sentenced to years of hard labor for a variety of offenses, and
you would then be "rented" to landowners or to companies such as U.S. Steel.

This all ended at the outbreak of WWII when FDR told all the US Attorneys to
strictly enforce existing Federal laws against “involuntary servitude and
slavery”.

------
mcv
I'm stunned. I know that there was still tons of institutional racism after
the Civil War, and I know that racism is still rampant, and there's still a
long road to go there, but I was honestly under the impression that actual
slavery at least ended with the Civil War.

I stand corrected.

