Prison records from 1800s Georgia show mass incarceration's racially charged beginnings
- Written by Barry Godfrey, Professor of Social Justice, University of Liverpool
A Georgia penitentiary in 1911.Library of Congress
Henry Minter was working as a farm laborer in Georgia in the 1870s when he met Mary Dotson, a young black servant girl. The couple never married – which would have been illegal at the time – but they stayed together until Henry’s death.
Mary, who was left with their four children,...
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