About this item
In this groundbreaking historical exposé, Douglas A. Blackmon brings to light one of the most shameful chapters in American history—an “Age of Neoslavery” that thrived from the aftermath of the Civil War through the dawn of World War II.Under laws enacted specifically to intimidate blacks, tens of thousands of African Americans were arbitrarily arrested, hit with outrageous fines, and charged for the costs of their own arrests. With no means to pay these ostensible “debts,” prisoners were sold as forced laborers to coal mines, lumber camps, brickyards, railroads, quarries, and farm plantations. Thousands of other African Americans were simply seized by southern landowners and compelled into years of involuntary servitude.
About the Author
A native of Leland, Mississippi, Doug Blackmon is chair of the Miller Center Forum at the University of Virginia and a contributing correspondent to the Washington Post.
For many years, he was the Wall Street Journal's Atlanta Bureau Chief and then senior national correspondent. "Slavery by Another Name" was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2009, among many other honors. Blackmon and a team of WSJ reporters and editors were finalists for another Pulitzer Prize in 2010 for their investigation into the causes of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that year.
He lives in Atlanta.
