The Aftermath

Abstract

In the Shadow of Slavery: Peonage in the South 1901–1969, Daniel (1990) refers to individuals with disabilities only once; in the revised preface to the second edition. In this instance, he observed that, in its 1988 ruling in U.S. v. Kozminsky that only physical and legal coercion could lead to involuntary servitude, the Supreme Court seemed, “far removed from the day-to-day lives of people threatened with losing their freedom of mobility.” He went on to say that:

In polite historical and judicial forums, the essence of involuntary servitude is often drained of life. On the one hand there is a dispassionate historical debate over labor mobility; on the other, a legal argument over precedent and intent. Such discussions only rarely deal with social and economic conditions that produce peonage, or even with historical questions raised by a long and continuing tradition of labor control that has often resulted in human bondage. (Daniel, 1990, p. xiv)

Daniel was correct in that questions such as why the public facilities were allowed to become so dependent on resident labor, and if some forms of labor were no longer considered “therapeutic,” what other forms of therapy would be better suited to promoting habilitation and recovery were rarely voiced.