Locked Up: The prison labor that built business empires in the South, including Tennessee

by MARGIE MASON and ROBIN McDOWELL Associated Press

Mon, September 19th 2022, 12:33 PM UTC

Men convicted of a crime and leased to harvest timber in Florida, 1915. (Library of Congress via AP)

An undated old photograph of the Lone Rock Stockade is shown, May, 28, 2022, in Tracy City, Tenn. The Lone Rock stockage operated for more than 25 years and used prison labor known as convict leasing. The prisoners lived in cramped, unsanitary conditions and risked their lives every day in the iron-making process. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

Photograph shows two white men overseeing African American men hammering boulders as others walk with wheelbarrows in a shallow pit phosphate mine, Dunnellon, Florida, 1890. (Library of Congress via AP)

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Men convicted of a crime and leased to harvest timber in Florida, 1915. (Library of Congress via AP)

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