Zack Lyde
Contributing writer
MAAFA Screams
Spring 2020 edition
Photograph courtesy of Burns Institute
We are treated as small, weak, poor people so we are treated with contempt. The Constitution of Georgia, local controlled governing bodies and the United States treats us as guerilla savages attempting to survive in this hostile climate.
Let's get closer to mass incarceration and extreme excessive punishment in this country and the history of enslavement in this country and the history of ensl avement is the foundation of the United States of America.
A chain gang called Anguilla in Glynn County, Georgia located off of Highway 32 was merely a replacement of the plantation that bore the same name. This is where 7 black men were executed by lynching in 1946.
It is here that my father took me to pray and teach me what I needed to do to avoid this grotesque imprisonment. I saw it first hand, in the yard of the chain gang, where men stood at the bars of the window while my father prayed. This despicable image plays constantly in my mind, for I now know that these men were behind bars for two petty charges: 1) Loitering 2) Vagrancy
Both of these charges were similar to all of the types of charges that are still prevalent today. These charges cause mass incarceration to be a prominent and lucrative profit center for plantation owners who have loss their workers due to the supposed end of slavery.
With the Black Codes of 1868 being enforced in all cities around the United States, the pickings were ripe to fill prisons with black, brown and red bodies. These Black Codes are said to be inactive; however it is evident that they are still imposed and are the driving force behind mass incarceration.
This experience has created a fire that wishes to rid our society of such inhumane cruelty that oozes from the seams of the government.
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