Breaking the law Quote by James Forman Jr
““Keeping blacks subjugated required that they be unarmed. Alabama’s law was typical: “Any freedman, mulatto, or free person of color in this state” was forbidden “to own fire-arms, or carry about his person a pistol or other deadly weapon.”76 Blacks caught breaking the law were subject to incarceration—which, in the early twentieth century, often meant being sold into debt servitude and forced to work in conditions that approximated slavery. According to Douglas Blackmon, “In an era when great numbers of southern men carried sidearms, the crime of carrying a concealed weapon—enforced almost solely against black men—would by the turn of the century become one of the most consistent instruments of black incarceration.”77””
—
James Forman Jr
★
★
★
★
★
4.5 out of 5 (3 ratings)
