A lens on prison labor

Published March 1, 2025

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 quotes Bruce Jackson in an article about a series of photographs Jackson took of labor in Southern prisons during the civil rights movement. “Now, I look back and just think how fortunate I was to be able to bear witness to something that few people got to see then,” said Jackson. “And hardly anybody gets in now.” Jackson went on to photograph prisoners working in Arkansas prisons in the 1970s. He said it’s hard to imagine that some of these same farm lines still exist in some states where prisoners are forced to work for pennies an hour or for nothing at all or face punishment. 

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