PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The latest project from Mural Arts Philadelphia supports a national movement to end the one exception in the Constitution’s anti-slavery amendment.
Akeil Robertson-Jowers served 10 years at SCI Graterford for a manslaughter conviction. That’s when he learned that there is an exception to the 13th amendment, which abolished slavery and involuntary servitude — except as punishment for a crime.
“People that are incarcerated have to work. They are paid small, if not slave, wages and treated as though they are slave labor,” Robertson-Jowers said.
He now works for Mural Arts and is collaborating with artist Phoebe Bachman on “End the Exception.” In the first phase of the project, Bachman says, incarcerated artists across the country will be commissioned to create visual art or descriptions of their labor.
“We’re taking those visualizations and turning that into a public artwork that’s going to be at the National Constitution Center,” she said.
Bachman says the artists will be paid for their work. There will also be a series of teach-ins in six cities, including one at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania on June 29 that is open to the general public.