Mass Incarceration as the After Math of Slavery

This week, I had the opportunity to watch the film 13th by Ava DuVernay, a powerful documentary that traces how slavery in the United States did not simply end, but instead evolved into new systems of control. The documentary explores how the criminalization of formerly enslaved Black people led to forced labor through incarceration, revealing patterns that continue to shape policing and incarceration today. DuVernay connects this history directly to the modern U.S. incarceration system, showing how mass incarceration has specifically harmed communities of color, while corporations profit from prison labor and private prisons. For people my age, this documentary is a reminder that learning doesn’t only happen in classrooms or textbooks. Watching a documentary like 13th can be a form of research in itself.