Abolish Slavery National Network
We are a national coalition fighting to abolish constitutional slavery and involuntary servitude in all forms, for all people.
End the Exception. Abolish Constitutional Slavery.
Join the National Network to Abolish Slavery
Rep. Sandra Hollins, Utah’s first Black female representative and Joan Trumpauer on the Utah State Floor after Rep. Hollins introduced HJR 8 to remove slavery and involuntary servitude from the Utah Constitution.
We envision a United States where all people, without exception, are free from slavery and involuntary servitude and where all people are protected by their state and federal constitution.
Slavery is still legal.
The 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution outlawed slavery and involuntary servitude ‘except as a punishment for crime where of the party shall have been duly convicted.’
For more than a century, our federal and state constitutions have preserved the right of those in power to enslave people as punishment for a crime.
In the very act of abolishing slavery, they created a loophole to allow this practice to continue, albeit in another form. The connection was sealed when oppressive Jim Crow laws were used to incarcerate newly freed slaves and when prisons started using slave labor.
Fast forward to our era of mass incarceration and many states today have the exception clause, or a version of it, in their state constitutions, allowing slavery and involuntary servitude to continue.
Our state constitutions are not symbolic documents, they are living documents that form the basis for all of our laws. The language that remains in our constitutions permitting slavery is immoral and we must remove it.
Join the states that are demanding an end to the exception clause.
California
Organizers in California are working to abolish involuntary servitude as punishment for a crime. Slavery is already prohibited.
Nebraska
In 2020, Nebraskans voted yes to end slavery and involuntary servitude as punishment for a crime!
New Jersey
Organizers in New Jersey are working to pass a constitutional amendment that prohibits slavery and involuntary servitude in the state, including as punishment for a crime.
South Carolina
Our goal is to enact legislation which will once and for all abolish legalized slavery in our state. To finish what our ancestors began. South Carolina has a representative for the Abolish Slavery National Network and we look forward to moving this issue forward in the halls of legislation.
Utah
In 2020, Utahns voted yes on Amendment C to remove 144-year-old language that allows slavery and involuntary servitude as punishment for a crime!
Colorado
In 2018, Colorado became the first state to vote to remove language from the state constitution permitting slavery and involuntary servitude as punishment for a crime. Amendment A received 66.2 percent of the vote.