Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

Black Elites, and Many Black Voters, Supported Mass Black Incarceration
25 Jul 2017
🖨️ Print Article

Historian, author and activist Paul Street has high praise for James Forman Jr.’s new book, Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America. Forman is a professor at Yale Law School and a former public defender in Washington, DC. His book “fills a giant hole in the literature,” illuminating the role played by “Black elites in the rise of the mass incarceration system,” said Street, himself an expert on race and the U.S. penal system. “Many ordinary, working class Black voters in the 70s and 80s have actively supported the racially disparate war on crime and drugs that ended up producing racist mass incarceration,” said Street, whose latest book is titled They Rule: The 1% v. Democracy.


More Stories


  • Essam Elkorghli
    NATO’s 77th Summit in Ankara, Türkiye: A Meeting of Warmongering and Endless Acronyms
    22 Jul 2026
    The engraved revolvers Erdogan handed out in Ankara showed that NATO has stopped pretending to be a defensive alliance and embraced its new role as the West's premier weapons trade fair.
  • Miguel DĂ­az-Canel BermĂşdez
    Cuba's President Responds to Marco Rubio's War Propaganda
    22 Jul 2026
    Cuba's president, Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez, posted this statement in response to the State Department report on his X/Twitter account.
  • Ruben Bauer Naveira
    The Global Food Crisis
    22 Jul 2026
    Faced with the blockade of vital oil routes, the extreme dependence of modern agriculture on fossil fuels foreshadows not only high prices but also a food shortage capable of generating global social…
  • Carlos Aznárez
    Zionist Expansionism in Latin America
    22 Jul 2026
    Free trade deals, water contracts, and military training programs are quietly binding one Latin American government after another to Tel Aviv.
  • Devin B. Martinez
    ICE Killings Fuel Nationwide Protests
    22 Jul 2026
    Recent killings at the hands of federal agents have fueled protests across the US, including a nationwide day of action on July 18.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us