south after the civilwar but Blackmon said neo-slavery is largely neglected

south after the civilwar, but Blackmon said "neo-slavery" is largely neglected. Even so, it exerted a powerful influence, terrorizing aswathe of the population and suppressing opposition to otherforms of racial oppression. Since the book was published, many black Americans havecome forward with stories of forbears who were convicted andthen effectively enslaved after the Civil War, Blackmon said "It has unleashed a conversation among ... AfricanAmericans thirsty for an explanation of how on earth could 10million black Americans have remained through poverty andsubjugation through this period of time," he said. A leading historian of the period, Wayne Flynt, describedthe book as "right on target" and said business leaders workedto stamp out opposition from church leaders and others toconvict leasing. UNMARKED GRAVES Two books about America's troubled racial past wonPulitzers this week, the other being "The Hemingses ofMonticello: An American Family" by Annette Gordon-Reed, whichdeals with a slave family whose blood line is mixed with thatof America's third president, Thomas Jefferson.

Blackmon said the books showed a renewed appetite tore-address forgotten aspects of the U.S. past in a new racialclimate in which Barack Obama was elected president last year. An abandoned coal quarry outside Birmingham, Alabama, showsthe obscurity in which convicts toiled and died. A century ago the Pratt Mines on what is now the outskirtsof the city were a hive of activity Thousands of men workedunderground.

Rail cars hauled coal from the earth and a wholetown, called Pratt City, grew up to support the industry. Now the mine is covered by dense forest that hides theunmarked graves of hundreds of convicts. The graves appear as shallow depressions in the soil wherecoffins and corpses decomposed and collapsed inward. A few are set off with a small slab of alabaster or marble,and on some there are plain headstones. Reads one gravestone:"DIED JULY 5 1910, AGED 40." Its top half is broken off after acentury of neglect so the identity of the person buried therecan never be known. Few people, even from the local neighborhood, are aware ofthe unofficial cemetery, said Jack Bergstresser, director ofAlabama's Museum of Iron and Steel, who first located the siteusing an old map.