Read: Locked Up – The Prison Labor that Built Business Empires Lone Rock Stockade in Tracy City, Tennessee, in an undated photo. The reporters push the company to answer questions about its past and engage with communities near the former mines. And it has never apologized for its use of forced labor or the lives lost. Steel has misrepresented this dark chapter of its history. During that time, more than 100 men died while working in their massive coal mining operation in Alabama. Steel took over Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad in 1907, the industrial giant used prison labor for at least five years. But the company also relied on forced prison labor. The United States Steel Corporation helped build bridges, railroads and towering skyscrapers across America. A team of volunteers are helping her, including a woman reckoning with her own ancestor’s involvement in this corrupt system and the wealth her family benefited from. She has also created a database listing the names of those sent to Lone Rock. Archeologist Camille Westmont has found thousands of artifacts, such as utensils and the plates prisoners ate off. This system of forced prison labor enriched the Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad company – at the cost of prisoners’ lives.Īt the state park that sits on the former site of the Lone Rock stockade, relics from the hellish prison are buried beneath the soil. The team talks with the descendant of a man imprisoned in the Lone Rock stockade in Tennessee nearly 140 years ago, where people as young as 12 worked under subhuman conditions in coal mines and inferno-like ovens used to produce iron. Associated Press reporters Margie Mason and Robin McDowell investigate the chilling history of how Southern states imprisoned mainly Black men, often for minor crimes, and then leased them out to private companies – for years, even decades, at a time. Please reload the page and try again.Īpple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | S titcher | Pandora | Amazon MusicĪfter the Civil War, a new form of slavery took hold in the US and lasted more than 60 years. Whoops! There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription.
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