This further angers the prison population, and some of the black convicts join Crewe's team.

The state funded a growing network of roads, with much of the work done by black convicts in chain gangs.

But several also complained that the death penalty is used disproportionately against black convicts and that some who have faced execution have later been found innocent.

If the program was truly sensitive to race, he asks, why not investigate whether the black convicts had been unfairly arrested, instead of worrying about putting them on the air?

During the later part of the 19th century other prisoners were accommodated at Breakwater prison and it was the first site to racially segregate black and white convicts.

Are the authorities labeling black convicts 'troublemakers' in order to funnel them onto the chain gang - simply because they are black?

Slaves had at least possessed the protection of their value as property; the lives of black convicts had no value in the eyes of whites.

In desegregated barracks, black and white convicts who were once kept rigidly separated now prey on each other in organized gangs.

Part of his solution: send black convicts to Africa under Nation of Islam supervision.

As Jackson transported the hostages and two black convicts away from the courtroom, the police began shooting at the vehicle.