In a hundred years, they'll be looking for people who had something, anything, to do with Beanie Babies.

September 18, 2007 1:40 PM

Where can I find people who have some relationship to convict-leasing in the southern United States? Are there historical societies (African American or otherwise) that can direct me to older people who can talk about what it was like? Where else can I look?

I'm putting together a documentary that has a component on convict-leasing. I want to find people, besides professors, who can talk about the issue of convict leasing, ideally as to how it touched the lives of themselves, their families, or their communities. But where do I look? Is there a secret treasure trove of lucid elderly people who can reference convict leasing? Or, for the creative types out there, is there a better way to help visualize it with doing a poor Ken Burns impression?

posted by history is a weapon to society & culture (4 answers total)

Having not been familiar with the term "convict leasing" until this question, I just turned to Wikipedia where I came across this book: One Dies, Get Another: Convict Leasing in the American South (with preview pages at Google Book Search) and look forward to learning more. Thanks for informing me about this. As they say, "You learn something new everyday."

I hope you find participants for your documentary.
posted by ericb at 2:10 PM on September 18, 2007

Since the last state to have legal convict leasing was Alabama in 1928, wouldn't any living people who dealt with it be at least 95-100 years old at this point? the odds are bad.
posted by Megafly at 6:42 PM on September 18, 2007

Further down, though, the Wikipedia article says:
...Like elsewhere, the abolition of convict lease in Florida did little to change the system, because with state convicts off limits, the populations of county jails simply expanded to fill the void. In Florida the turpentine industry fueled the demand for convicts. So the “end” of convict lease was not 1923, convict lease declined slowly, along with the demand for turpentine, after the end of World War II.

So that would somewhat increase your chances of finding someone who remembers it.
posted by bassjump at 6:48 AM on September 19, 2007

You could try to contact the person listed at the Wikipedia page who is doing the thesis - Phoebe Ryles, at Umass's Afro-American Studies program. Perhaps she has some insight. Otherwise, I'd look through other publications about the subject and contact the authors. I'm sure somebody has an idea of where you can talk to someone who was personally involved. What kind of deadlines are you working with?
posted by cashman at 7:48 AM on September 19, 2007