The history you learned in school likely taught you that the 13th Amendment abolished slavery, but most of those lessons skip over the second half. "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States." With this wording, the system justifies the use of prisoners as an unpaid or starvation-wage labor force.
Black codes. Loitering laws. Unemployment. Slavery was abolished, but this exception allowed states to legally force incarcerated people to work. Southern states quickly weaponized this through convict leasing: disproportionately imprisoning Black men and hiring them out to private companies for work in mines and on railroads for 30 cents for a 16-hour day. Prison labor didn't end then.
In 1996, Hillary Clinton wrote "It Takes a Village." In her book, she explained that when she was first lady of Arkansas, the governor's mansion was staffed with incarcerated Black men in their thirties, a "longstanding tradition" that kept costs down because they were not paid. In this country, tradition is rooted in anti-Black exploitation.
The U.S. as we know it today wouldn't look the same without slavery. It was built on it, and mass incarceration, and this 13th Amendment loophole allows it to continue.
Groups like the Abolish Slavery National Network are fighting to abolish slavery in all forms. The time is now to fight for abolition. All of our freedom depends on it.