Worse than Slavery by David Oshinsky: Horrors of the Black People

Worse than Slavery Paper “Worse than slavery” by David M. Oshinsky’s retells the horrors that blacks and whites experienced in the South prior to and after the Civil War. Even after the end of the Civil War in the time of emancipation, African Americans faced ongoing torture and inequality that lasted well into the twentieth century. This was due to feelings of white supremacy and greed in the South. Throughout the book, Oshinsky supports his argument that slaves continued to receive inhumane and unequal treatment after the Civil War with numerous statistics, records and personal accounts of those who experienced this brutality. Convict labor, which was fueled by greed and a corrupt criminal justice system, was the South’s way of remaining in control and keeping the slaves where they believed they belonged. It was not until the middle of the twentieth century at Parchman farm that the convict system moved away from its roots of sole black oppression, to poor white discrimination as well. However, not all blacks were imprisoned or worked to death. There were many successful and respected African Americans in this time period, which is not portrayed thought the story. This fact results in a biased view of the south following the Civil War. After the Civil War a new, more radical form of slavery took over, convict leasing. Convict leasing began in 1868, just three years into reconstruction and lasted well into the twentieth century. Under the convict leasing system, hundreds of thousand of blacks were worked to death under the worst conditions imaginable, while many whites greatly profited. “The convict now found himself laboring for the profits of three separate parties: the sublease, the lessee, and the state. There was no one to protect him from savage beatings, endless workdays, and murderous neglect”(Oshinsky, 44). The reason convict leasing lasted so long was due to its economic, political, and social impacts on the south and the north. Economically, the