Chain Gang of Prisoners in North Carolina (1910) Engaged in Roadwork

Description of the photograph: The prisoners are quartered in the wagons, which are equipped with bunks and move from place to place as labor is utilized. The central figure is J.Z. McLawhon, county superintendent of chain gangs. The dogs are bloodhounds used for running down any attempted escapes

If you are a reader of this blog, you will notice that I regularly focus on the historical underpinnings of the PIC along with its current manifestations.  My reason for this is that it is impossible to understand what is currently taking place in terms of mass/hyper-incarceration without looking back at our history.  It is not an accident that people of color (particularly black people) are disproportionately impacted and targeted by the criminal legal system.  In addition, without a historical context, one cannot currently understand people of color’s (particularly black people’s) mistrust and fear of the American criminal legal apparatus.

Last week I shared a few songs about jail/prison based on a request that I received from a reader of this blog.  One of the songs that I mentioned was Sam Cooke’s classic “Chain Gang.”  This prompted someone to send me an e-mail asking if chain gangs were still in operation in the U.S.  The short answer to that question is YES.

In terms of prison iconography, the chain gang is one of the most recognizable and enduring images. I doubt that many people are aware that even in the 21st century chain gangs continue to exist in states across the U.S. A few years ago the insane Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona started a chain gang for men convicted of DUIs and his “innovation” was to make the men wear pink clothing while toiling.

Here is a clip from a recent film called American Chain Gang that illustrates its current incarnation in the U.S.

Chain gangs are an extension of the convict lease system.  Robert Perkinson (2010) suggests that the creation of the chain gang in the early 20th century “was celebrated as a humanitarian advance” (p.151).  In his terrific book “Texas Tough,” he quotes Joseph Hyde Pratt, a convict labor advocate in North Carolina, who provides a rationale for the chain gang: “Life in the convict road camp…is more conducive to maintaining and building up the general health and manhood of the convict than when he is confined behind prison walls” (p. 151).  Proponents suggested that this was particularly so for black prisoners. According to the assistant director of the U.S. Office of Public Roads: “The negro is accustomed to outdoor occupations…[and is] experienced in manual labor…[he] does not possess the same aversion to working in public…as is characteristic of the white race” (in Texas Tough, p. 151). It is important to understand that both the convict lease system and chain gangs were forms of neo-slavery. They were created as a way to maintain black cheap (free) labor after slavery officially ended.

Perkinson (2010) explains why chain gangs gained favor especially in the South:

“[P]oliticians rallied to the chain gang because it provided public works on the cheap.  Between 1904, when state felons first began working on its roads, and 1915, convicts were primarily responsible for expanding Georgia’s surfaced road grid from two thousand to thirteen thousand miles, making its state highway system the most advanced in the South…Just as leasing had jump-started postbellum railroad construction, sugar milling, and coal mining, chain gangs helped lay the infrastructure for twentieth-century rural development.  The American South was built not only by slaves but by convicts  (p.152).”

David Oshinsky (2006) describes some of the black people in Mississippi who found themselves on the chain gang:

The chain gang took people like Walter Blake, a ‘crap-shooting little colored boy’ who received a $50 fine for illegal gambling and a $132 bill for court costs, a sum he could not possibly raise. Blake spent a full year working off his debt. A ‘negro thief’ named Julius Hoy found himself reduced to virtual peonage during his stay on the Covington County chain gang. “He is being charged 60 cents per day for board,” a local attorney noted, “and at present the fine and accumulated board amounts to approximately $89.20, and it will never be possible for him to serve out his time” (p.42).

I am currently re-reading the wonderful “Blues Legacies and Black Feminism” by Angela Davis. In the book, Davis suggests that imprisonment was one of the central themes in blues music. Davis explains that Ma Rainey’s “Chain Gang Blues’ “most incisively and realistically addressed this omnipresent fact of life in the black community (p.102).”

The judge found me guilty, the clerk he wrote it down
The judge found me guilty, the clerk he wrote it down
Just a poor gal in trouble. I know I’m country road bound

Many days of sorrow, many nights of woe
Many days of sorrow, many nights of woe
And a ball and chain, everywhere I go

Chains on my feet, padlock on my hand
Chains on my feet, padlock on my hand
It’s all on account of stealing a woman’s man

It was early this mornin’ that I had my trial
It was early this mornin’ that I had my trial
Ninety days on the country road and the judge didn’t even smile.

According to Davis (1998), “Sandra Lieb points out that the lead sheet for this song contains a penultimate verse which was omitted in the recording.”

Ain’t robbed no train, ain’t done no hanging crime
Ain’t robbed no train, ain’t done no hanging crime
But the judge said I’d be on the country road a long, long time.

Davis (1998) writes: “Black people throughout the South who listened to Rainey perform ‘Chain Gang Blues,’ and who were all too familiar with the chain gang and convict lease systems, likely would have interpreted this song as a deeply felt protest aimed at the racism and sexism of the criminal justice system.”

I share this information about Ma Rainey’s music because it is important to point out that as black people we have always RESISTED our oppression. This is particularly important to remember at this juncture in our history when what we need is a mass movement to resist the hyper-incarceration of black people. We need to remember our history in order to change our current conditions.

One of the most important parts of Blues music is improvisation. Singers and performers take songs and then interpret them for themselves. They often change lyrics and therefore the meaning of the songs. Here is Kokomo Arnold’s 1935 interpretation of Chain Gang Blues. Listen closely to see how he reinterprets the original lyrics as performed by Ma Rainey.

Let’s take some inspiration from our past to affect change in the present…