Other women are thrilled when they get gifts of jewelery or perhaps a new pair of shoes. Well, not me. I was out of town last week and returned to find an envelope waiting for me. I opened it and upon seeing the content, I started doing a happy Snoopy dance. Thanks E, you totally know the way to a girl’s heart. So you may be wondering about what could have made me so happy, well it was an original 1923 pamphlet documenting the practice of convict leasing in Alabama. It was written by a committee appointed by the Alabama Federation of Women's Clubs. This 6-page pamphlet printed on 8 1/2 by 11 paper double- sided is so old that the paper is yellowed and frayed. However it is chock-full of interesting and important information about Convict Leasing in the South. OK, I give you permission to think it; “That girl sure is weird.” Though I prefer to think of myself as “endearingly eccentric.”

I recently learned that Douglas Blackmon’s excellent book “Slavery By Another Name” which addresses the history of the leasing system is being turned into a documentary that is slated to air on PBS in 2012. I periodically get emails from folks asking me for information about the Convict Lease system and I usually recommend that book. I am definitely not an expert on the topic nor am I a historian but I have and do read a lot about the prisoner contract system. I have already addressed this issue in a general way here, here, and here. There will be more to come in the coming months.

In the meantime, let’s get back to “the report of the committee on the investigation of convict lease and contract system appointed by the Alabama Federation of Women’s Clubs.” I have previously touched upon the essential role that women have played in prison reform efforts throughout history. The members of the Alabama Federation of Women’s Clubs fall squarely within that tradition. Here is how the committee members (all of them women) introduce their 1923 report on the leasing system: [I have faithfully transcribed the words as they were written]

“The Alabama Federation of Women’s Clubs has opposed the Convict Lease System for more than eight years. In an effort to gain first hand information concerning present conditions, a committee was appointed to visit the mines and lumber camps where convicts are leased.

We as daughters of the great commonwealth of Alabama and as members of the Federation of Woman’s Clubs were sent as a committee to investigate the mines and lumber camps where state prisoners are leased or employed under the contract system and to find out the actual conditions under which they live. Between the twenty-seventh and thirtieth of June visits were made to: the Banner Mines at Littleton, The Belle Ellen Mines at Blocton, the Aldrich Mines at Montevallo, the Lumber Mills at River Falls.

We started with an acknowledged prejudice against this system of selling the labor of convicted persons, but with a desire to find out what was best in the plan as well as what was worst and with an earnest prayer that we might be led to see and judge aright. We returned convinced more than ever that this system permits great wrongs, is destructive of the best manhood in the prisoners and is totally unworthy of a great state.“

Below are excerpts from their report describing the Convict Lease System in Alabama in the early part of the 20th century:

“Each man is assigned a day’s task – so many tons of coal to dig and load. The men are divided into groups of seven or eight under the leadership of a check-runner as the boss man is called. The check runner is given the responsibility of seeing that the men complete the day’s task. He is a convict chosen we were told by a deputy warden very often for his known desperate character, which may serve perhaps to terrorize the men under him. The check-runner, convicts told us, is instructed that at whatever cost of labor on the part of the convict or whatever means of compulsion he himself may use he must see that the day’s task is completed. The only objective set before him is the tonnage for the company. Think what this means to the young first offender who may be sent to the mines for no greater offense than the boyish prank of stealing a ride on a freight train, a reckless youth, but not a confirmed criminal. All of his working day, he is under the control of a brutal, unintelligent, and perhaps hardened criminal.

No lashes or whips are used in the mine, but the stout staff that all miners use to help them in their progress through the mine is always at hand. In the absence of the warden and in control of the check-runner, these sticks have been used as clubs. Suppose a man does not complete his day’s task or that his work lags behind, he may be beaten or cuffed by the check-runner. If he resists or if he fights, he will probably be reported to the warden for discipline. We believe that the use of convict check-runners in the mine is brutal and is a source of injustice that an honorable state should not condone.

[…]

The lash, we are glad to say, is no longer used as a method of punishment. In its place confinement in punishment cells known as dog-houses, has been substituted. The dog-houses are coffin-like boxes standing on end, dark, narrow, and ventilated only by air holes at the top. Some of them are worse than others. The worst ones we saw were ventilated by a small hole in the top of the door not more than two inches square. Members of the committee tried squeezing in to the cell. It was like stepping into the half compartment of an old fashioned wardrobe, only the cell was considerably narrower. In fact it was so narrow that it seemed a large man could only get in at all by holding his arms over his head. In some places, we were glad to see that a slatted door had taken the place of the solid boards. In some of the dog-cells, we saw the handcuffs which were fitted on a man to make his confinement in the punishment cells even more galling. The time of punishment according to the statement of various wardens varied from forty minutes to forty-eight hours. In showing one of these cells one warden told us that a man could live there only eight hours. Another warden told us that the state physician had approved of the ventilation. In spite of this, this form of discipline seemed to us worse than the Black Hole of Calcutta.

[…]

The wardens said that prisoners were punished for refusing to work, for fighting, and for breaking rules. Prisoners told us that they were punished for failure to get out the required number of tons a day or for refusing to work over-time. Our most severe criticism of the punishment system is (1) that the warden who administers the punishment does not go into the mines and (2) that the dog-cells permits a form of torture being administered which could not fail to injure the physical efficiency of any prisoner and which we cannot believe would help him morally.

[…]

Payment is made to the prisoners for coal dug in addition to the task. Of course we approve this provision for some pay to the convicts. It is a commendable arrangement provided the task is not too heavy and provided it is left to the voluntary decision of the prisoner. If it is true as we were told by prisoners in two mines that refusal to work for this extra pay meant punishment, we are not certain that we should give it our full endorsement.

We asked to be taken into the mines, but it proved to be impracticable. We went some fifty or sixty feet unto the entrance of the mine at Belle Ellen and at Aldrich and found the path so slippery with water, and the tunnel so dark and low that we could not safely proceed without an experienced guide. For this reason we have to depend entirely on what the wardens and the prisoners told us about the way they work in the mine. At Aldrich a man on the night shift told us that they entered the mine at five-thirty in the evening but that it took them until seven to get to the place where they were digging coal, the hour and a half being necessary for them to proceed stumbling through the dark, falling over rock and bent half double because of the low walls to the night’s work. They worked until five-thirty in the morning when another hour and a half must be added to the toil of the day so that they reach the mouth of the mines at seven. In all this is practically fourteen hours of labor.

Here and there in the prisons, we found men with a life sentence or sentence for a long period of years, who have served for years and have good prison records. They begged us to use our influence to have them pardoned or paroled as they had no family or friends on the outside to interest themselves in their welfare. Of course, we had no opportunity or authority to make a careful study of any concrete cases. But may we suggest that the Federation should use its influence to have a parole commissioner investigate all such cases in the prisons.

[…]

Our conclusion is that the present state officials as well as those of the last administration have made earnest effort to bring the prisons to the best possible condition under the present system; but that the system is inherently wrong. It is wrong for the following reasons:
1. It permits a miscarriage of justice as sometimes the sentence of imprisonment pronounced by the courts has been changed to death.
2. It permits first offenders to be controlled almost entirely by hardened criminals.
3. It increases the burden of the state and society by making cripples.
4. It increases the burden of the state and of society in making criminals. (A warden told us that fifty per cent of his charges were repeaters)
5. It considers the profit in money to the state and to the leasing company as more important than the latent human value of the convict.

We believe that the responsibility of removing this false system should be shared by every patriotic citizen of Alabama. We believe that the present Governor and legislature have it in their power to make their term of office a blessing to the state by abolishing the Lease Contract System.

Respectfully submitted,
Mrs. F.L. Cade
Mrs. Oscar Dugger
Mrs. S. J. Cole
Mrs. Priestly Toulmin
Mrs. Brevard Jones

The first thing that came to mind for me after I finished reading the pamphlet was: “How far along would we be today in reforming(ending) prisons if current members of the Chicago Junior League started visiting TAMMS Supermax and issuing reports about their findings? How about if members of the AKA or DELTA sororities started writing exposes on police violence in our cities? It seems implausible but then again I’ve learned that history does often repeat itself. And it does seem that we have historical precedent for such involvement by women’s clubs in criminal legal reform efforts. Here’s hoping for a revival of such activism…

Over the next few weeks, I will write about the actual lived experiences of black prisoners (in particular) in Alabama from 1865-1900. I am reading a book focused on this topic and am learning all sorts of interesting information. It’s wonderful to be learning about the context of the emergence of the convict lease system in the South. Also, because I am a total nerd, I own a copy of a report of the Alabama board of inspectors of convicts from 1902 to 1904. This report is particularly useful for the detailed information that it provides about Alabama prisoners at the turn of the last century. I will share some of that information in coming weeks too. For now, I hope that you found the words of the women from the Alabama Federation of Women’s Clubs affecting, illuminating, and ultimately inspiring. It gives me solace to remember that there were many who came before us who were fighting for justice. We should learn from and build upon their legacies. Oh and also, pamphlets are awesome. More pamphlets, that’s what I say.