ABSTRACT
It began on Bastille Day, the anniversary celebration of when Parisians stormed a famous prison in 1789 and turned the tide in what would become the French Revolution. One hundred and two years and half a world away, Tennessee coal miners marked the occasion with a revolt of their own. Prisoners and their advocates fought to protect the bodily integrity of incarcerated people, bring public attention to the cruelties happening in prison, and reduce the number of people arrested or incarcerated. Paradoxically, the abolition of chattel slavery sanctioned prison slavery. The constitutional amendment eradicating slavery included a cause legalizing it in the prison context. Prison slavery, always a national phenomenon, continued after the 13th amendment formally abolished chattel slavery. The model of confinement in Northern prisons, which was nationally influential, generated moments of stiff resistance. Prison was among the most taboo sites of the Jim Crow racial order.
