Yeah uh we're not making this one up:
More than 150 years after it was officially outlawed in the United States, slavery will be on the ballot in five states in November, as a new abolitionist movement seeks to reshape prison labor.
Voters in Alabama, Louisiana, Oregon, Tennessee and Vermont will decide on state constitutional amendments prohibiting slavery and involuntary servitude, in some cases except for work by incarcerated people. Advocates say the amendments are needed to strip antiquated language from state constitutions and to potentially transform the criminal justice system by making all work in prisons voluntary.
When you find out that there is still apparently a need to abolish slavery in the United States:
Okay okay it's not quite that simple (or shocking):
The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1865, abolished slavery and involuntary servitude in the United States — except as punishment for someone convicted of a crime. The "exception clause" loophole led to repressive 19th-century laws in the South known as Black Codes that allowed authorities to incarcerate Black people for petty crimes, such as vagrancy, and then force them to work. Black Codes were a precursor to the Jim Crow laws outlawed by the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
"We want to remove offensive language and provide protection for citizens from slavery and involuntary servitude," Max Parthas, co-director of state operations of the Abolish Slavery National Network and co-host of a weekly online radio program, Abolition Today, said in an interview.
Okay, so this is more about "involuntary servitude" more so than slavery.
You can stop rolling in your grave, Mr. Lincoln, it was a false alarm!
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