ABSTRACT
An idle black was an abomination to the typical Southerner, especially when the South needed cheap labor to rebuild itself. Thus, an intricate system of state laws and local ordinances rapidly evolved to entrap and prey upon impoverished black males to commandeer their labor. A conviction for an unlucky escapade like gambling, or fornicating, or getting drunk could mean months on a county labor gang, especially if the offender was a healthy, black male without money to pay a fine. Accordingly, landless black males were confronted with essentially two unattractive choices: they could either agree to such exploitative labor contracts, or risk arbitrary arrest for vagrancy or a variety of other petty offenses, and face months or even years of convict labor when they were convicted. As demand for free labor continued to grow, convict leasing became a widespread practice among the states and large private companies.
