Continued indentured servitude was something of an open secret, and not just on the Eastern Shore. In 1927 a grand jury report found that an institute called the House of Reformation for Colored Boys in southern Maryland was forcing young Black boys to work on local farms and in businesses like broom factories. The school was intended to “instruct” and “reform” boys who had been labeled as vicious and improper, and many of the boys housed there were known to be “mentally deficient.” The investigators found that the boys were being farmed out in direct competition with regular laborers, and
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