Click here to read what these historians say kids should be learning:  Ken Burns, Walter Isaacson, Alex Kershaw, Sophia Rosenfeld, James Grossman, Jack Schneider.

Kids should be taught about slavery’s demise. But they should also learn about its evolution and its legacies. This is the most important thing kids should be learning in school today.

They should know that slavery didn’t end after the Civil War. It evolved. The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution legally abolished slavery, “except as a punishment for a crime.” This clause enabled “slavery by another name” to continue through the prison system. 

From the late 1860s until the 1920s (and even today!), thousands of African American men, women, and youth were virtually re-enslaved through a system known as convict leasing. If an individual was convicted of a felony offense, he or she would be forcibly leased to a private company or factory by the state for a fee.  

Although leased convicts were not slaves in the legal sense of the word, their lived experiences resembled the enslaved. They worked from sunup to sundown; they were beaten and flogged, and the women were raped; their humanity was denied; they were severely punished if they escaped; they were separated from their families; and many were made to serve life sentences. 

Leased convicts helped build modern America. They deserve to be included in our history books.