Told from the perspectives of statesman and orator Frederick Douglass, and journalist and activist Ida B. Wells, Before 13th is a story that illuminates the contradictions of freedom. Friends and rivals, Douglass and Wells clashed over how to grapple with the racism and exoticism that defined portrayals of African Americans at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, where Douglass was invited to speak after they had initially agreed to boycott the event. It uses the story of this real-life conflict as a lens through which we see the history of slavery and incarceration as never before.
Historical anthropologist Michael Ralph joins forces with acclaimed illustrator Laura Molnar to reimagine these two influential Black Americans and the controversies surrounding the Thirteenth Amendment—which some contend did not abolish slavery, claiming instead it was used to keep African Americans in a condition approximating bondage in the years immediately following Emancipation. Before 13th boldly takes on this issue, offering a provocative re-thinking that goes back years earlier than the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment, to a practice known as convict leasing, an experiment in capitalist innovation and progressive legal reform, whose profound effects continue to be felt today.