The Five American Wars for Slavery
September 2020 (Wall Street International)* — There have been four wars for slavery conducted by the USA: the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War and the Civil War.
When American children like me were taught American history, we were told that the Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves in the rebellious states of the Confederacy and the 13th Amendment to the Constitution freed them everywhere in the USA.
That was a very effective lie. It told part of the truth, but left out the part that is most important. The 13th Amendment reads:
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
The phrase “except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted” meant that African-Americans could be arrested and convicted of failing to pay rent when they were sharecroppers, looking at or touching a white woman, observing a white man commit a crime and then testifying in court, trying to vote, for being a judge who had sentenced a white man for a crime (during the 12 years of Reconstruction after the Civil War), or for just being black.
Today, African-Americans are being arrested for protesting peacefully, running from the police, driving while being black or just being “uppity” or “resisting arrest”. This has expanded into a prison-industrial complex in which prisoners work under inhumane conditions, subject to punishment without cause (except “being uppity” or resistant).
