Part One of this interview appeared here, in the January 6 issue of BAR. On January 20, BAR will begin publishing excerpts from The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness [The New Press].
“Mass incarceration has turned the Black community against itself,” says Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Black Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. Mainstream organizations like the Congressional Black Caucus and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights put out laundry lists of proposed reforms, while failing to make America’s Black Gulag a priority. “If the way we pursue reforms does not contribute to the building of a movement to dismantle the system of mass incarceration,” says the veteran civil rights lawyer, “and if our advocacy does not upset the prevailing public consensus that supports the new caste system, none of the reforms, even if won, will successfully disrupt the nation’s racial equilibrium.”
60 years ago, the Mississippi Freedom Democrats took a stand at the Democratic National Convention, bodily challenging the racist party and the violent voter repression of Black people. Years…
We are joined by Jasiri Fahali Kiyamaa, an organizer of Curbfest, an event advocating for political prisoners. New York City's Curbfest will take place on Saturday, September 7, 2024 in Brooklyn.
In 2020 our late comrade Glen Ford spoke at a Black is Back Coalition video conference on political prisoners. In these excerpts of his remarks, he discussed the need to understand the political…
We are joined by Cecilia Prado, the Chairperson of A Luta Sigue who is working with the drivers to organize the Tennessee Drivers Union strike and others on labor organizing in Nashville and Memphis…
In this week’s segment we hear about the exploitation of ride share workers and a labor action in Tennessee, a state hostile to worker organizing. But first we discuss organizing on behalf of…
