We also have in Louisiana several privatized prisons. At one of them, in the parish where my ancestor had some of his cotton land, there was a strike recently and I would like to know what happened. The Changeseeker offers some context.
Axé.
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coldhearted scientist وداد 
Have you ever written about your ancestor and his cotton lands and what it’s like being near there now? Just curious.
I’ve mentioned it but not written in detail, there is a whole lot to say and my idea is to write about it under my real name.
The Edward Lloyds of Wye House in Maryland are the family in question. They have had the place since the 17th century or so. In its heyday this was the largest plantation in MD, with over a thousand slaves. It was also known to have the best table / best hospitality in the state. Frederick Douglass spent some of his childhood there. Several decades earlier the Acadians after being thrown out of Canada had been housed there (much to the dismay of the masters, as they were Catholic and French speaking and might corrupt the Caribbean slaves).
By the 19th century MD was more of a slave breeding than a plantation place, and “cotton was king”. In 1837 the Lloyds acquired land in Canton, MS and in the 1850s, further land in southern Arkansas and in Tensas Parish, LA (just across the river from the Jackson/Canton area, basically). The place in Canton was known in the family as “Edward’s penal colony” and I know less about the other properties, although there’s an interesting letter from Christmas 1859, written from the Tensas Parish place to a son, about how the people in Louisiana were entirely unreasonable and surely would secede if there was secession (which my ancestor did not look happily upon as it was not necessarily good for business).
In _Coming of Age in Mississippi_, Anne Moody writes about organizing in the Canton area, as well as living in various places in SW MS, N.O. and Baton Rouge. It’s different now and then again not very, at least from what I can tell of the really rural parishes.
Thanks for the information. “Edward’s penal colony”–sounds as though there is a lot to write about.
Private prisons are atrocious. Hawaii contracted to have a privately run prison built in ARIZONA, just for Hawaiian inmates.
That sure makes sense, doesn’t it. A couple of months ago they shut down the prison where I used to teach.
The problem I see is that liberal sympathy does not help in thinking about how to solve our social dilemmas. The fact is, many many people belong in prison, probably more than in most countries. It really is not true that prisons are full of innocents, as we would like to believe. We have neglected children and young people for so long. We admire out of bounds behavior and even encourage it. There are the guns, the hard drugs, the vice industry, the family abuse. Some people do awful things and can’t be allowed to run around loose. And keep in mind that drug dealing or consumption isn’t just about that: it is tied in to other crimes, such as robbery, assault, rape, etc.
I am, of course, leaving out the race element, but race plays out differently here in the Islands. It’s a factor, though. My students were almost all “locals:” i.e., of racially mixed ancestry.
We are a crime-ridden country in denial.
Well — innocent, I don’t know that people claim this, but it is more or less true about the criminal behavior and attitudes. Maybe the O-man is right to send all those troops to Afghanistan, I don’t know. Maybe prisoners should get the right to volunteer.
conditions have to be this lousy
so the empire can *find* “volunteers”.
just being poor is illegal; they’ll lock
you up for being from the wrong
neighborhood. they’ll beat you up
first so it’ll’ve been a crime resisting.
this isn’t even news.
meanwhile everybody’s job is pretending
everything’s all right. who wants to be next?
want crime? check out the
copenhagen show.
All very true and on point/central, and I wish I had time this week to really follow the KBH events.
It is very hard to pretend everything is all right.