But why weren't there more? Overall, last year's election "made zero progress noted the State Convention of Colored Men of Texas in 1883 “complained” of prisoners being leased by the state to plantation owners and working until they “dropped dead in their tracks.” The 13th Amendment abolished slavery in 1865, but as the theSmithsonian noted“exceptions were explicitly made for prisoners.” violent white nationalist rally in Charlottesville this weekend I Was a Teen Behind Bars — Here's How I Survived the System