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


  • Hip Hop: A Global Lingua Franca for the Dispossessed
    Jon Jeter
    Hip Hop: A Global Lingua Franca for the Dispossessed
    06 Sep 2023
    Any celebration of the 50th anniversary of hip hop must reference its worldwide political appeal.
  • Georgia Attorney General Brings RICO Indictments Against 61 Activists
    Atlanta Community Press Collective
    Georgia Attorney General Brings RICO Indictments Against 61 Activists
    06 Sep 2023
    The state of Georgia is using the RICO organized crime statute to crush Stop Cop City protests.
  • Dilemmas of Humanity Conference in the US Outlines Principle Task: Organize a Working Class Movement to Defeat the Empire
    Natalia Marques
    Dilemmas of Humanity Conference in the US Outlines Principle Task: Organize a Working Class Movement to Defeat the Empire
    06 Sep 2023
    Socialists, organizers, and working class leaders in the United States describe the challenges the movement faces, and what is to be done to overcome them.
  • 11th Circuit Court Issues Stay in Favor of Atlanta in "Cop City" Referendum Case
    Dyana Bagby
    11th Circuit Court Issues Stay in Favor of Atlanta in "Cop City" Referendum Case
    06 Sep 2023
    The petition process to put Cop City on the ballot in Atlanta continues, despite Atlanta public officials' insistence on building a so-called public safety training center that their constituents don…
  • Black Agenda Radio September 1, 2023
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio September 1, 2023
    01 Sep 2023
    Fani Willis' prosecution of Black teachers, gun violence and racism, and the challenge of securing exoneration in New York.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us