Historian Khalil Muhammad explains how the mechanisms of dealing with race relations ended up producing new forms of slavery after Reconstruction.

Descendant Rod Frazer talks about how his ancestor became one of the largest leasers of convicts in the state of Alabama during a StoryCorps interview.

Descendant Barbara Belisle remembers visits from the KKK from her childhood.

Descendant Cristina Comer explains her family's history and her challenges reconciling them.

Historian Pete Daniel explains how the legal system perpetuated compulsion.

Author Douglas A. Blackmon explains the sharecropping and how it was another form of slavery.

Author Douglas A. Blackmon talks about researching his book “Slavery by Another Name” and his surprise at finding child convicts.

Historian James Grossman talks about the legacy that exists today due to supremacy and terror mechanisms from the past.

Descendant Dr. Robert Corley describes a photo of a prisoner and how convict leasing is part of Birmingham’s history during a StoryCorps interview.

Descendant Cristina Comber talks about why she thinks her family doesn't talk about their family's history.

"When John Davis arrived at the Pace farm...usually agreeing to work another year or more to pay off his new “debt” to the white man.”

"The article generated a response unlike anything else. Altogether, millions of mostly obscure entries in the public record offer details of a forced labor system of monotonous enormity."

“Reese was astonished by the evidence piling up in his office, and quickly asked for the assignment...ignore the implications of the extraordinary evidence that soon poured into his office.”

“As painful as it may be to plow the past, among the ephemera left behind...The clock must be reset.”

“Two years later, unaware of the failed peonage prosecution in Georgia...typically at least 100 percent.”

“I am perfectly willing for one to shoulder this responsibility and commence these proceedings...that you will protect me from such attacks.”

“Instead of slave owners, the men who now controlled squad and simultaneously to feed them as little as they could get away with...”

“A few months later in 1883, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Civil Rights Act of 1875...opened a torrent of repression.”

“I found something gratifying in the life of Judge Eugene Reese. But we still have a long ways to go.”