Louisiana’s present-day distinction as the world’s incarceration capital is rooted in three centuries of history. Throughout this history, people in power have used systems of enslavement and incarceration to hold others captive for punishment, control, and exploitation. Black Louisianians have suffered disproportionately under these systems. Through historical objects, textual interpretation, multimedia, and data visualization, Captive State investigates these throughlines and arrives at an irrefutable truth: that the institutions of slavery and mass incarceration are historically linked.

Captive State tells this story in two parts. The first part outlines how Louisiana’s colonial and early American governments created race-based systems of oppression through legislation, policing, imprisonment, and violence that matured as New Orleans became the hub of the domestic slave trade. The 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which abolished slavery except as punishment for a crime, permitted Louisiana to evolve its methods of racial control and embrace convict leasing and forced prison labor, particularly at a plantation known as Angola.

The second part of the exhibition traces how the Louisiana Constitution of 1898, written to maintain white supremacy, enabled an era of mass incarceration in the 20th and 21st centuries. Through nonunanimous jury verdicts and “tough on crime” legislation,  incarceration rates skyrocketed, with far-reaching impacts. Among them are the growing number of people serving life sentences without parole. This has resulted in an aging state prison population, making the work of incarcerated volunteers in the hospice program at the Louisiana State Penitentiary essential. Lori Waselchuk photographed this program in Grace Before Dying, displayed in the mezzanine of the Tricentennial Wing. 

The exhibition concludes with a reflection question, reading recommendations, and information on ways to get involved on issues related to mass incarceration.

Header images:

Left: Angola Hoers; 1938; gelatin silver print by Fonville Winans; HNOC, 2018.0513.9
Right: Vue d’une Rue du Faubourg Ste. Marie, Nelle. Orléans (Louisiane); ca. 1821; lithograph with watercolor by Felix Archille de Beaupoil Saint-Aulaire, artist; P. Langlume, lithographer; The L. Kemper and Leila Moore Williams Founders Collection at HNOC, 1937.2.3