Important Book:Worse Than Slavery: Parchman Farm and the Ordeal of Jim Crow Justice

David O. Oshinsky Worse Than Slavery: Parchman Farm and the Ordeal of Jim Crow Justice      

This was a book read for a class at Southeastern Louisiana University and the review was written for class. Oshinsky's book is an important contribution to understanding the racial sins of the past and the horrors of Jim Crow. I highly recommend it.     

            Violence characterized much of Southern culture and history before and after slavery. In his book, Worse Than Slavery David O. Oshinsky lays out the violence and racial injustice within Mississippi, especially as demonstrated by the prison system. The book divides into two sections. The first section examines the period after slavery and before Parchman Farm prison while the second section deals with the Parchman Farm period. From the 1830s to the 1930s Mississippi appears as the most violent state in the nation. The antebellum period was the scene of murders, duels, stabbings, and extreme violence among white men. The violence of that time bleeds throughout the history of Mississippi.

            The violence and evils performed upon African American men by the state are clearly evident in the convict lease system. After the Civil War and Reconstruction black men find themselves arrested for the smallest of petty crimes. In 1876 Mississippi passed the ‘pig law” which defined as grand larceny any theft ten dollars or more. The punishment up to five years of hard labor trapped many African American men. During slavery, the punishment of slaves centered on the plantation. State involvement in the punishment of slaves was rare. But a fear of black freedmen moved politicians to crack down on black crime. Most of these men landed in the cruel convict lease system. Working to death became commonplace for men trapped in this unforgiving system. But this system brought great wealth to those who used convict labor. Convicts worked on plantations, railroads, mining, or lumber. The exhausting work and the astronomical mortality rates became the norm. The harsh and unforgiving conditions even led white Mississippians to speak out against its cruelties. The death rate was astounding as few inmates “ever lived long enough to serve a sentence of 10 years or more.''

             The replacement for the convict lease system was Parchman Farm.  In 1904 James K. Vardaman became governor of Mississippi on a platform of white supremacy. Chief among his goals was penal reform. Vardaman’s goal for the Parchman Farm was a replication of plantation life. The Parchman prison farm located in the rich soil of the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta made for ideal growing conditions. Parchman became very profitable and even supported half of the education budget for the state. By the early 1900s, the great majority of Mississippi’s felons went to Parchman Farm. There they worked from dawn to dusk. White sergeants like slave overseers supervised the prisoners much like overseers. Underneath the sergeants' trustees armed with rifles or shotguns kept a close watch on prisoners. The trustees received special privileges as a reward for their service and resembled the drivers of the antebellum plantations despised and mistrusted by the general population. Sitting on top of Parchman was the superintendent who operated like a slave master. Parchman was very much like slavery.

            Conditions began to change after World War I as the black population of Mississippi dropped due to the mass migration of African Americans north. As the black population decreased the population of white inmates increased at Parchman. Parchman officials generally believed that white men were not suited for hard plantation labor. White inmates reportedly worked less and complained more about hard labor. The only recorded strikes at the prison were by whites complaining of hard work and long hours. Yet there was one ironic privilege that black inmates enjoyed over their white peers. Blacks received conjugal visits on Sundays with their wives or prostitutes. Officials believed the myth that black men being more primitive in nature thought it prudent to allow black prisoners a sexual outlet.

            As the Civil Rights Movement moved through the South and eventually Mississippi, Parchman developed into a tool against those working for equality. When Freedom Riders found themselves arrested their Parchman tested their commitment. Most heartbreaking though was the story of Clyde Kennard who faced imprisonment at Parchman due to conviction from framed up charges. A World War II paratrooper, Kennard’s only real crime was his application for graduate school at Mississippi Southern College. (now The University of Southern Mississippi) Kennard faced brutal labor and when abdominal pain advanced into cancer, he was accused of indolence. Parchman officials ignored his declining health until he was finally released in the spring of 1963. Rushed to Chicago for emergency surgery Kennard died on July 4, 1963, after cancer ravaged his body.

Clyde Kennard

            After the Civil Rights movement, reform came to Parchman due to the class action lawsuit Gates v. Collier. Integration of the races in the prison and replacement of armed trustees with civilian guards changed the prison immediately.  Yet violence did not end. White and black gangs formed and violence shifted from guards and trustees to the inmates. Local farmers leased the vast farmlands leased to local growers while Parchman developed into a prison similar to other states.   Oshinsky's book is a difficult read as he reveals the depth of depravity and cruelty within Jim Crow Mississippi and the larger South. But this is an atrocity which must be faced if one desires an understanding of our tortured racial past. It's not a pretty picture but one which must be faced if healing is to occur.