History
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For much of the nineteenth century after the American Civil War, the state of Mississippi used a convict lease system for its prisoners; lessees paid fees to the state and were responsible for feeding, clothing and housing prisoners who worked for them as laborers. As it was lucrative for both the state and lessees, as in other states, the system led to entrapment and a high rate of convictions for minor offenses for black males, whose population as prisoners increased in the decades after the war. They often struggled for years to get out of the convict lease system. Due to abuses and corruption, the state ended this program after December 31, 1894, and had to build prisons to accommodate convicted persons. The State of Mississippi began to acquire property to build its first correctional facilities.
In 1900 the Mississippi State Legislature appropriated US$80,000 for the purchase of the Parchman Plantation, a 3789-acre (15.33-Km²) property in Sunflower County. What is now the prison property was located at a railroad spur called "Gordon Station."
Read more about this topic: Mississippi State Penitentiary
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“Boys forget what their country means by just reading “the land of the free” in history books. Then they get to be men, they forget even more. Liberty’s too precious a thing to be buried in books.”
—Sidney Buchman (1902–1975)
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“We know only a single science, the science of history. One can look at history from two sides and divide it into the history of nature and the history of men. However, the two sides are not to be divided off; as long as men exist the history of nature and the history of men are mutually conditioned.”
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