By 1911, Alabama’s economy depended on this pipeline.
Companies like Pratt Consolidated Coal (part of Tennessee Coal & Iron) paid the state for access to cheap, disposable labor.
Convicts were worked under brutal conditions because they were (cont)
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April 8, 1911: Banner Mine Explosion
An explosion at the Banner Mine in Alabama killed 128 men, almost all of them African American prisoners of the state who were forced to work in the mine under the convict leasing system.
