Many black people, born decades after the end of slavery, died as slaves having been forced to work in mines around Birmingham, Alabama. In particular the notorious Pratt Mines, run by the Pratt Coal & Coak Co.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — On March 30, 1908, Green Cottenham was arrested by the Shelby County, Ala., sheriff and charged with vagrancy. After three days in the county jail, the 22-year-old African-American was sentenced to an unspecified term of hard labor. The next day, he was handed over to a unit of U.S. Steel Corp. and put to work with hundreds of other convicts in the notorious Pratt Mines complex on the outskirts of Birmingham. Four months later, he was still at the coal mines when tuberculosis killed him.
http://www.slaverybyanothername.com/other-writings/hard-time-from-alabamas-past-capitalism-and-racism-in-a-cruel-partnership/ 

The convict cemetery at the Pratt Mine.
🔗Pratt-Coal-Mine-Archive-Album-Image-43873[linkphoto]Pratt-Coal-Mine-Archive-Album-Image-43873[/linkphoto][/link]

An interesting comparison with the Fraternal Cemetery at Pratt Mines

WITH WILLIAM MORRIS GRAVE MONUMENT, THE INSCRIPTION ON WHICH READS: 'GOD'S FINGER TOUCHED HIM AND HE SLEPT.'

His finger sure never touched the poor sods in the other cemetery.
🔗Pratt-Coal-Mine-Archive-Album-Image-43886[linkphoto]Pratt-Coal-Mine-Archive-Album-Image-43886[/linkphoto][/link]

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