For nearly 200 years, the United States has branded itself as a land of freedom and “liberty and justice for all”. This myth was bolstered by the 13th Amendment, stating that slavery shall not exist in the United States except as a punishment for crime. The façade that this amendment has created is one that shames overt forms of racism and discrimination against Black people, yet still systematically profits off their stolen labor. This systemic profit is the interconnection of the U.S.’s largest and most successful corporations and the use of prison labor as a manufacturing source, termed the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC). As an Atlanta resident and Emory student, it cannot go unacknowledged that the PIC is at work creating its next business venture a few miles away: the building of a multi-million-dollar Public Safety Training Center termed Cop City.
To best understand the impact and severity of Cop City, it is important to understand what has occurred to our country in the aftermath of the 13th Amendment. The ratification of this amendment in 1865 left former Southern plantation economies desperate for a new cheap labor source. As a result, laws were passed in the South establishing petty crimes such as loitering and vagrancy, which were aimed at newly emancipated Black people who had trouble finding homes and stability in a post-Civil War landscape (DuVernay). These Black Codes, along with the establishment of privately funded police forces and the promotion of racial stereotypes, began the era of incarcerating Black people at disproportionate rates while continuing to exploit their labor.
Fast forwarding to the 1980s, Ronald Reagan’s assault on economics, healthcare, and education instilled a wealth gap that deepened racial divides compounded with over-criminalizing Black communities for the use of crack cocaine. This brought in a new era of incarceration that doubled incarceration rates from 513,800 in 1980 to 1,179,200 by the end of the decade (DuVernay). I would like to hand it over to Atlanta native rapper Killer Mike to better explain the ramifications of the Reagan era, paying special attention to lyrics and visuals used.
Ronald Reagan laid the groundwork for what Bill Clinton would fully realize with his 1994 federal crime bills: the partnership between major corporations and incarcerated labor. These crime bills led to the incarceration rates doubling again at the end of the decade reaching over 2 million incarcerated people due to providing grants to expand prison facilities, enacting the “three strikes” policy, increasing militarization of the police, and introducing mandatory minimum sentences in federal courts (DuVernay). Because correction facilities were now overcrowded with convicts, corporations and politicians seized an opportunity to use their labor to line their pockets. By working with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) was able to let other major business conglomerates such as Coca-Cola, P&G, Microsoft, and Walmart buy shares in prison systems in exchange for free/cheap convict labor to assemble their products (DuVernay). The result was insurmountable wealth for the politicians and corporate leaders involved in ALEC, while mostly Black and brown incarcerated masses were being exploited for their labor, continuing the legacy of slavery being America’s economic backbone.
The story of the PIC continues in our state capital as Atlanta legislators voted on June 5th, 2023 to approve the multi-million-dollar budget for a state-of-the-art police training facility located in the historically significant Weelaunee Forest. It goes to mention that many elected city council members were lobbied by the Atlanta Police Foundation, and several major corporations such as Chick-fil-A, Nationwide Insurance, Coca-Cola, Wells Fargo, Delta Airlines, and Home Depot are board members and major funders of Cop City (AJ+). The irony of the proposed plan is that the land on which it plans to be built was used as a prison farm where convicts were exploited for their labor, as well as serving as a plantation exploiting enslaved Africans after being stolen from the MuscogeeMuskogee people. The history of the land is one that holds the echoes of previous generations of exploitation, injustice, and the overall presence of the carceral state. For the land to be mutated once more to serve as an extension of our militarized police force would imbue catastrophic consequences for the majority Black community living nearby, as well as continuing to prove to American citizens that liberation and political freedom are reserved for those in power.
Figure 3. Excerpt from “Letter from a Treesitter,” inspiring hope for those fighting in the cause against Cop City. Originally published in “Beneath the Concrete, the Forest: Accounts from the Defense of the Atlanta Forest” August 9, 2022.
References
Crimethinc, “Beneath the Concrete, the Forest: Accounts from the Defense of the Atlanta Forest”. 9 Aug 2022.
DuVernay, Ava, director. Thirteenth. Netflix, 7 Oct 2016.
“Killer Mike- ‘Reagan’ (Official Music Video).” YouTube, Pitchfork, 3 Oct. 2012, https://youtu.be/6lIqNjC1RKU.
“Police vs. Atlanta: The Battle Over Cop City.” YouTube, AJ+, 15 Dec. 2022, https://youtu.be/fPMW47tCA1g.
