In a new episode of the Reveal podcast Saturday, reporters from the Associated Press and the Center for Investigative Reporting dug into the history of convict leasing after the ‘end’ of slavery in the U.S. After the Civil War, a new form of slavery, through which Southern states imprisoned mainly Black men, often for minor crimes, and then leased them out to private companies, took hold in the US, benefitting companies like the Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad company for more than 60 years.
People as young as 12 worked under subhuman conditions in coal mines and inferno-like ovens used to produce iron. After taking over Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad in 1907, the United States Steel Corporation also relied on forced prison labor for at least five years as it helped build bridges, railroads and towering skyscrapers across America. During that time, more than 100 men died while working in their massive coal mining operation in Alabama. U.S. Steel has misrepresented this dark chapter of its history and never apologized for its use of forced labor or the lives lost, the Associated Press reports.