On this day, April 8, in 1911, an explosion at the Banner Coal Mine in Littleton, Ala., claimed the lives of 128 men ??– 122 of which were convicts loaned out from prisons.
Of the 122 prisoners killed that day, all but five were black.
Alabama’s controversial convict-lease program was a profitable arrangement for the mining industry and the state.
Mining accidents were common place in Alabama, with more than 1,000 deaths between 1900 and 1910. Most of those killed were black, and lawmakers moved to end the exploitative system.
But the economic interests involved could not be overridden, and the convict lease system continued until 1928, when it was finally abolished.
— Scott McCabe
