Chained in Silence

“Leaves us with a radically new understanding of the historical dimensions of racism, gender, and state violence.” —Elizabeth Hinton, The Nation

“This beautifully written book leads its readers on the journey from Emancipation to the devastating convict-leasing system in Georgia. . . . [and] examines the exploitation of black women’s bodies, the beginnings of mass incarceration, and the rise of the modern New South.” —Erica Armstrong Dunbar, The Nation

“Highly recommended.” —CHOICE

“A deeply researched and carefully crafted mouthpiece for black female convict laborers.” —American Historical Review

“An indispensable reference point.” —Journal of Southern History

“A much-needed and distinctly gendered perspective on carceral roots of both antiblack racism and resistance to it, a history that can be silenced no longer.” —Journal of American History

“A meticulously researched, and immensely illustrative record of the understudied labor efforts made by thousands of black female convicts in the post-Civil War South.” —Punishment and Society

“A well-written, accessible, provocative study of black women’s lives in Georgia’s convict-labor system at the dawn on the New South. . . . Surely one of the best books out on southern women’s history in years.” —Register of the Kentucky Historical Society

“Reads as a tour de force— a gripping history that insists on speaking the names and remembering the lives of long-forgotten working-class black women caught up in the violent, exploitative system of convict labor in post-emancipation Georgia. . . . Painstakingly researched, beautifully written, and certain to become a classic in the literature on labor, race and the criminal justice system, as well as black women’s history." —Social Service Review

“Shows how attention to the experiences of incarcerated women— nearly all of them African American— casts new light on a neglected corner of the New South’s cruel penal system.” —Social History