Worse Than SlaveryIn this sensitively told tale of suffering, brutality, and inhumanity, Worse Than Slavery is an epic history of race and punishment in the deepest South from emancipation to the Civil Rights Era—and beyond. Immortalized in blues songs and movies like Cool Hand Luke and The Defiant Ones, Mississippi’s infamous Parchman State Penitentiary was, in the pre-civil rights south, synonymous with cruelty. Now, noted historian David Oshinsky gives us the true story of the notorious prison, drawing on police records, prison documents, folklore, blues songs, and oral history, from the days of cotton-field chain gangs to the 1960s, when Parchman was used to break the wills of civil rights workers who journeyed south on Freedom Rides. |
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LibraryThing Review
User Review - larryerick - LibraryThingThe subtitle of this book mentions Parchman Farm, which the book definitely covers, but only for the last half and only as the extreme example of the Jim Crow "justice". And while the main title ... Read full review
LibraryThing Review
User Review - wsampson - LibraryThingAn immensely informative read - as riveting as it is sobering. I should note that Oshinsky covers a significant amount of time before Parchman's establishment. He begins before the Civil War, then ... Read full review
Contents
Emancipation | 11 |
The Mississippi Plan | 31 |
American Siberia | 55 |
Copyright | |
7 other sections not shown
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Common terms and phrases
American began better boys called camp Civil claimed coal colored convict leasing cotton County court crime criminal death Delta described escape executed Farm federal field forced freedom Governor guards hands hard History hundred included inmates Jackson jail James John judge justice keep killed known labor land later less lived look lynchings March MDAH Miss Mississippi moved murder named Negro never newspaper nigger Notes officials Parchman pardon Pardon File Penitentiary percent plantation planter political poor population prison profits punishment race racial railroad recalled reform reported seemed sent sentenced sergeant serving sheriff shot Slavery slaves social South Southern thing tion told took town trial trusties turned Vardaman victims viewed wanted whipped woman women workers wrote York young
Bibliographic information
| Title | Worse Than Slavery |
| Author | David M. Oshinsky |
| Edition | illustrated, reprint |
| Publisher | Free Press, 1997 |
| ISBN | 0684830957, 9780684830957 |
| Length | 320 pages |
| Subjects | › › › History / United States / State & Local / South (AL, AR, FL, GA, KY, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, VA, WV) Social Science / Criminology Social Science / Ethnic Studies / American / African American & Black Studies |
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