Mississippi started purchasing land that would become Parchman Prison from the Parchman family in 1901. This land is located in the heart of the Mississippi Delta where cotton was king.
After the land was purchased, prisoners were ordered to build the prison themselves, beginning Parchman’s history of torment. Incarcerated people worked from sunrise to sunset under intense heat. From picking cotton to plowing fields, working at Parchman was slavery under a different name.
Parchman’s style of slavery has been extremely profitable for Mississippi. In just its second year of operation, Parchman made $185,000 for the state. That’s roughly $5 million today. Even though cotton is no longer grown at Parchman, the exploitation of Black labor has continued.
Black Mississippians now make up 70% of Parchman’s population despite being just 37% of the population. Incarcerated people still work in the same fields their enslaved ancestors did. Their conditions are filthy, with rats, unusable bathrooms, and the constant threat of violence. Parchman must be shut down.
No one deserves the torture that’s life behind bars at Parchman. Its existence proves that prisons are not about safety or rehabilitation. That’s why we can no longer pretend they’re good for our community.