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


  • BAR Book Forum: Naa Oyo A. Kwate’s Book, “White Burgers, Black Cash”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Naa Oyo A. Kwate’s Book, “White Burgers, Black Cash”
    31 May 2023
    This week’s featured author is Naa Oyo A. Kwate. Kwate is associate professor of Africana studies and human ecology at Rutgers. Her book is White Burgers, Black Cash: Fast Food from Black Exclusion…
  • 30 Years Later, Justice for Forced Sterilization Cases During Fujimori Dictatorship?
    Clau O'Brien Moscoso
    30 Years Later, Justice for Forced Sterilization Cases During Fujimori Dictatorship?
    31 May 2023
    The Fujimori regime forcibly sterilized thousands of people in Peru and the victims are still fighting for justice.
  • Ol’ Schmo ‘negotiates’ Us a trillion dollar deal—  We started with TEN…
    Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Ol’ Schmo ‘negotiates’ Us a trillion dollar deal— We started with TEN…
    31 May 2023
  • Centering Imperialism in Libya: Implications for the African Continent
    Essam Elkorghli
    Centering Imperialism in Libya: Implications for the African Continent
    31 May 2023
    Libya exemplifies the terrorism inflicted upon African nations by US/NATO imperialism. Twelve years after the Libyan state was destroyed it is still under sanctions which devastate that country.…
  • Unity Is an Imperative: Reclaiming African Liberation Day, 60 Years On
    Tanupriya Singh
    Unity Is an Imperative: Reclaiming African Liberation Day, 60 Years On
    31 May 2023
    African liberation will not be realized without Pan-African unity and socialism, as Kwame Nkrumah made clear at the founding of the Organization of African Unity, the precursor to the African Union.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us