BEFORE 13th draws on little-known details about a feud between Ida B. Wells and Frederick Douglass (who serve as narrators) to unwind a new history of slavery and incarceration which demonstrates that convict leasing — the system in which Southern states rented prisoners to private railways, mines, and large plantations — was not created through the 13th Amendment, but started several decades prior at a prison in Kentucky that eventually held both white and Black people, and people of all genders. Forthcoming in 2024 by HarperCollins Amistad.