By John Leschak
TRENTON-An American Socialist organizer and professor who was associated with the Black Panther Party, a revolutionary group whose goal was liberation from racial and economic oppression, Angela Y. Davis spoke at The College of New Jersey (TCNJ), about race, gender and social justice in the American penal system on Feb. 20.
Although slavery was legally abolished by the 13th Amendment, Davis claimed that slavery still lives on, in new forms, particularly in institutions of punishment. “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States,” says the 13th Amendment.
This allows the government to legally “lease” prisoners as laborers for sub-minimal wages, Davis explained.
Before the amendment passed, there were few blacks in U.S. prisons, but after emancipation, blacks became the majority of the prison population. In the South, under this “convict-lease system,” recently freed blacks were arrested for crimes such as loitering, thus perpetuating slavery under a different name.
Under the “Black Codes,” laws passed in the postbellum South that inhibited the freedom of African-Americans, normally minor offenses were treated as felonies. The imprisoned blacks were then leased to work on the same plantations they had worked on as slaves. The “convict-lease system” continued into the 1930s.
The U.S. has the world’s largest prison population, with more than 2.2 million people in the prison system, Davis said. However, prison populations are rising all over the globe.
Davis argued that the global proliferation of prisons “is more related to the international economic system than a response to criminal activity.” According to Davis, under neo-liberal capitalism, a large fraction of humanity lives in cities and, yet, are basically outside the formal institutions of the world economy. These “excess populations” are controlled through the institution of the prison, she said.
Davis has personal experience with the criminal justice system. In 1969, she was a fugitive from the FBI when she was accused of conspiring in the failed jailbreak of George Jackson, a member of the Black Panther Party, who was imprisoned for stealing $70 from a gas station and then sentenced to one year to life in prison. He was shot down by prison guards which sparked successive cases that altered the treatment of prisoners by prison guards.
Davis was captured in 1970 and put on trial in 1971. The jury acquitted her of all charges a year later.
The College of New Jersey was divided on the issue of allowing Davis to speak on campus. Dan Beckleman, a member of the TCNJ student government, opposed Davis’ lecture, calling her a “terrorist.”
On the other hand, Tom Stone, a TCNJ junior, was enthusiastic about Davis speaking at TCNJ. “The real terrorist is the U.S. government,” Stone said.