Lawmakers mark Juneteenth by reviving 'abolition amendment'

FILE- In this Dec. 11, 2007, file photo, members of the Maricopa County DUI chain gang are escorted to their assignment in Phoenix. As the nation on Thursday, June 17, 2021 officially made Juneteenth a federal holiday, honoring when the last enslaved Black people learned they were free, lawmakers are reviving calls to end a loophole in the Constitution that has allowed another form of slavery to thrive. (AP Photo/Matt York, File)
FILE- In this Dec. 11, 2007, file photo, members of the Maricopa County DUI chain gang are escorted to their assignment in Phoenix. As the nation on Thursday, June 17, 2021 officially made Juneteenth a federal holiday, honoring when the last enslaved Black people learned they were free, lawmakers are reviving calls to end a loophole in the Constitution that has allowed another form of slavery to thrive. (AP Photo/Matt York, File)

As the nation this week made Juneteenth a federal holiday, honoring the end of the enslavement of Black people, lawmakers are reviving calls to end a loophole in the Constitution that allowed another form of slavery - forced labor for those convicted of some crimes - to thrive.

Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley and Georgia Rep. Nikema Williams reintroduced legislation Thursday to revise the 13th Amendment, which bans enslavement or involuntary servitude except as a form of criminal punishment. That exception, which has been recognized since 1865, has led to the common practice of forced prison labor.

Social justice advocates said it created generations of Black families touched by mass incarceration and poverty and the ramifications are still being felt today. Juneteenth seemed like the appropriate time to address this "huge piece of systemic racism in the middle of our Constitution," Merkley told the Associated Press.

"At the moment that we are celebrating, if you will, the 13th Amendment and the end of slavery and its eventual announcement we should at the same time recognize that the 13th Amendment was flawed," Merkley said. "It enabled states to arrest people for any reason, convict them and put them back into slavery."

The amendment's loophole for criminal punishment encouraged former Confederate states, after the Civil War, to devise ways to maintain the dynamics of slavery. They used restrictive measures known as the "black codes," laws targeting Black people for benign interactions from talking too loudly to not yielding on the sidewalk. Those targeted would end up in custody for these minor actions, and would effectively be enslaved again.

The so-called "abolition amendment" was introduced as a joint resolution in December. Mostly supported by Democrats in the House and Senate, it failed to gain traction before the session's end. The hope this time around, Merkley said, is to ignite a national movement.

The issue is important to Williams, a Black woman who grew up in the South. She hopes this legislation won't be viewed through the prism of money and what the loss of prison labor would mean. Instead, she says, the history of the prison system and its relationship to people of color must be viewed in a "people-centered way."

"Our people have already been in chains and enslaved because of money," Williams said. "We have to make sure that we are truly moving forward and not using money as a crutch of why we're continuing to perpetuate sins of our nation's founding and our nation's history."

One group that has long been part of the movement is Worth Rises, a criminal justice advocacy group helping with the legislation's rollout. The amendment's clause has significant repercussions today, said Bianca Tylek, Worth Rises' executive director. Incarcerated workers make at most pennies on the dollar for their contributions, she said, and they lack recourse if they get hurt working or have to work when sick.

"We're talking about people who can be beaten for not working. People can be denied calls and visits, contact with their family," Tylek said. "People can be put into solitary confinement. People can take hits on their long-term record."

Jorge Renaud, national criminal justice director for LatinoJustice and a parolee, said those punishments happened to him when he couldn't get through some jobs. He spent much of his 27 years in Texas state prisons doing hard labor like picking cotton, chopping down trees and grading roads. Texas does not pay jailed workers.

For Renaud, 64, what was worse than no pay was not having much sense of self-worth.

"It's not just the choice to work. It's the choice to do anything," he said. "We live in a country that prides itself on individuality. It's impressed upon you over and over again that you are worthless and you belong to the state."

Advocates of the bill note that it targets forced labor and not prison work programs, which are voluntary.

"What we're saying," Tylek said, "is the value of that work must be demonstrated and people must not be forced to work against their will."

In Renaud's experience, prison labor was also something often done without racial equity. White incarcerated workers often were assigned less labor-intensive tasks like running the prison library or refurbishing computers. However, their Black and Latino counterparts got kitchen and laundry duty. He noticed a similar trend when he gave some legislators a tour of a prison unit three years ago.

"The jobs that might prepare you for something out in the free world or are technology based are still reserved for whites," Renaud said.

More than 20 states still include similar clauses involving human bondage or prison labor in their own governing documents, which date to the 19th century abolition of slavery. Nebraska and Utah, which are represented by GOP senators, were two of the first to amend their constitutions for the very same issue last year through voter- approved initiatives. Only Colorado came earlier, removing such language through a ballot measure in 2018.

Merkley is optimistic his Republican colleagues will ultimately support the legislation.

"Nothing about this should be partisan," Merkley said. "I think every American should be about ending slavery in our Constitution."