Alabama Establishes Convict Leasing to Coal Companies

Alabama began systematic convict leasing in 1868, contracting predominantly Black prisoners to coal mines, iron foundries, and railroads. The Sloss Iron and Steel Company and the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company became major lessees. Annual mortality rates in Alabama coal mines under leasing regularly exceeded 10 percent, with documented cases of prisoners worked to death and buried on mine property. Black codes' vagrancy provisions fed a steady supply of prisoners.