You might not have known this, and I'm glad to bring it to light because it horrifies me deeply: the Louisiana State Penitentiary, once known as Angola Plantation, continues to operate as a modern-day plantation. It's not just a prison; it's a place where forced labor is blatantly practiced, and it mirrors the historical horrors of slavery.

This isn't about history being so long ago that we should forget it. This is happening right now. The penitentiary transitioned from being a massive plantation to a prison the moment slavery was abolished. This wasn't a coincidence; it was a strategy to continue exploiting labor under a new guise. Today, it holds around 5,000 inmates, with 85 to 90% being Black men. This stark statistic isn't just an oversight—it's a chilling continuation of systemic racial oppression.

What disturbs me most is the imagery; prisoners are led through fields by guards on horseback. If this doesn't remind you of photos from the era of slavery, I'm not sure what will. It's a deliberate, in-your-face representation of a system that never truly ended—it just changed its appearance. And now, there's talk of adding an immigration detention center to this complex, repeating the cycle with new populations.

People argue that America doesn't profit from slavery anymore, insisting it's part of a forgotten past. But Louisiana State Penitentiary is a living, breathing contradiction to this belief. It's a manifestation of how the prison-industrial complex still thrives on the exploitation of marginalized communities.

We have to put a stop to this. We must demand that forced labor at Louisiana State Penitentiary ends now. Let's show our lawmakers that this blatant continuation of slavery cannot be tolerated. Please sign this petition to bring about real change and stop this disturbing cycle of injustice.