MikeDunnAuthor<p>Today In Labor History April 8, 1864: The 13th amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, banning chattel slavery. However, it permitted a continuation of wage slavery and the forced labor of convicts without pay. And on this date in 1911, 128 convict miners, mostly African-Americans jailed for minor offenses, were killed by a massive explosion at the Banner coalmine near Birmingham, Alabama. While the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, which occurred just two weeks earlier, elicited massive public attention and support for the plight of immigrant women working in sweatshop conditions, the Banner explosion garnered almost no public sympathy, probably due to racism and the fact that they were prisoners. </p><p><a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/workingclass" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>workingclass</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/LaborHistory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>LaborHistory</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/prison" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>prison</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/prisonlabor" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>prisonlabor</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/racism" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>racism</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/coal" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>coal</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/mine" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>mine</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/immigrants" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>immigrants</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/prisoner" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>prisoner</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/slavelabor" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>slavelabor</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/slavery" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>slavery</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/workplacesafety" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>workplacesafety</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/alabama" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>alabama</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/BlackMastadon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>BlackMastadon</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/triangleshirtwaist" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>triangleshirtwaist</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/fire" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>fire</span></a> <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/explosion" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>explosion</span></a></p>