chain gang

“Alligator Alcatraz” has antecedents in Florida’s historic chain gangs, where Black and queer workers in prison stripes toiled on roadsides and slept in cages often insured by the Charley E. Johns Insurance Agency.

Inmates are sentenced to time behind bars, not forced labor, a vestige of chain gangs and slavery.

Ivey noted it’s one of the only remaining places in the country where a chain gang still operates.

And hard labor on road gangs in the Panama Canal Zone looked a lot like the chain gangs used to consign Black people to prison slavery in the South.

But as busy as UW’s defense makes the chain gang, it doesn’t overwork the scoreboard operator.