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


  • New Docs Link CIA to Medical Torture of Indigenous Children and Black Prisoners
    Orisanmi Burton
    New Docs Link CIA to Medical Torture of Indigenous Children and Black Prisoners
    28 Jun 2023
    The field of medicine is not inherently beneficial. Marginalized people have long been used for experimentation purposes, and the incarceration and surveillance states have participated in…
  • Organizers March on the White House to Say: Take Cuba Off the List!
    Natalia Marques
    Organizers March on the White House to Say: Take Cuba Off the List!
    28 Jun 2023
    Sanctions against Cuba and the designation as a "State Sponsor of Terrorism" create great hardships for the people of that country. Recent actions demanded that Cuba be taken #OffTheList.
  • World Refugee Day Marked by 108 Million Being Displaced
    Abayomi Azikiwe
    World Refugee Day Marked by 108 Million Being Displaced
    28 Jun 2023
    The recent drownings of 500 refugees in the Mediterranean call attention to the displacement of millions of people as a result of imperialist actions.
  • Super (Maxed Out): The Demise of Alabama Prisons
    Kriston Dowdell
    Super (Maxed Out): The Demise of Alabama Prisons
    28 Jun 2023
    In Alabama Covid funds are used for prison construction, opportunities for the incarcerated to be released have been eliminated, and violence is rampant. Alabama makes the case for prison…
  • Black Agenda Radio June 23, 2023
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio June 23, 2023
    23 Jun 2023
    Foreign policy is our focus on Black Agenda Radio this week.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us