For a specific example of the abuses that many prison plantations in the South were founded on (since the article implies but doesn't actually mention any details), it was extremely common post-slavery in the US for Black men to be arrested en masse for 'vagrancy' or other nonsense charges just before harvesting season and sentenced to hard labor for just long enough to finish the harvest, then get dumped on the street again.
There's an excellent and pulitzer-winning book about this widespread dynamic called "slavery by another name." The practice continued routinely in huge swathes of the south until world war 1, and in a few places decades even after that.
There are great John Mayall and Mose Allison recordings of the eponymous song by Bukka White . Mayall did it live quite a bit, not sure if he's kept it on the repertoire.
I had the same thought. My (white sharecropper fwiw) great grandfather went to Parchman (probably in the 30s or 40s) and supposedly came out broken and insane. I've always understood it to be a hell on earth on par with Alcatraz so it seems strange to see it framed as a place where people made some cool music :/
I did time in Parchman in the early 00s as I was transferred from prison to prison for RID (Regimented Inmate Discipline.) Intake was Rankin county, I started at Walnut Grove, then off to Parchman as I was too old for Walnut Grove (turned adult,) we buried people at Parchman. Then off to SMCI on the coast.
Contact the author and tell them the other sides. Every journalist I've met/worked with appreciates that kind of thing, another source/another side. They definitely will give you time.
I saw Mose play a couple real small venues in the 90s and remember one time someone asked him to play it. He pretty much said “I don’t play that one anymore.” No point, just an anecdote.
