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Freedom Deferred: Incarceration and the Legacy of Slavery


An American flag is seen through dark, vertical prison bars. The flag appears faded and partially obscured, symbolizing the tension between national ideals of freedom and the reality of mass incarceration.

This month, the United States will be celebrating Independence Day, commemorating the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Thus, the United States is supposedly celebrating 249 years of freedom this year.


But despite this proclamation of freedom, the United States has never been truly free. The enslavement of Black people was legal and sanctioned until the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution in 1865—almost three years after the Emancipation Proclamation and almost 90 years after that first Independence Day.


And a quarter of a century after the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, the United States is still not free for all. The carceral system in this country—the prison industrial complex—has been designed to take advantage of that important caveat in the amendment that outlawed enslavement and involuntary servitude: “except as punishment for crime.”


The legacy of slavery was perpetuated during Jim Crow, and that same legacy is perpetuated today in our prison systems. As reported by the NAACP, Black people are incarcerated at over five times the rate of white people. As Michelle Alexander writes in The New Jim Crow, “Slavery defined what it means to be Black (a slave), and Jim Crow defined what it meant to be Black (a second-class citizen). Today mass incarceration defines the meaning of Blackness in America: Black people, especially Black men, are criminals.” She goes on to say, “We have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.”


This Independence Day, we acknowledge the role that the carceral system plays in denying freedom and humanity to millions of people across the nation.


No one of us can be free until everybody is free - Maya Angelou

About the Author

Naomi Neptune is the Prison Library Project Coordinator at The Claremont Forum. She oversees book fulfillment, volunteer support, and advocacy efforts to promote literacy and justice for incarcerated individuals across the country.


This piece reflects the perspective of our PLP Coordinator and is offered in the spirit of critical reflection and ongoing conversation around justice, incarceration, and access to education.


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