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


  • How to Help Haiti
    Jemima Pierre , Tanya Golash-Boza , Kevin Alexander Gray
    How to Help Haiti
    15 Mar 2023
    Kevin Alexander Gray co-wrote this article after a trip to post-earthquake Haiti.
  • Obama and Black America
    Kevin Alexander Gray
    Obama and Black America
    15 Mar 2023
    Kevin Alexander Gray analyzed Barack Obama's presidential election and its negative impact on Black people and their politics.
  • Captive Maternal Roundtable: Rebecca A. Wilcox
    Rebecca A. Wilcox
    Captive Maternal Roundtable: Rebecca A. Wilcox
    15 Mar 2023
    The following is part of the first installment of our “Captive Maternal Roundtable” on Joy James’ new book, In Pursuit of Revolutionary Love: Precarity, Power, Communities.
  • Captive Maternal Roundtable: Da'Shaun Harrison
    Da'Shaun Harrison
    Captive Maternal Roundtable: Da'Shaun Harrison
    15 Mar 2023
    The following is part of the first installment of our “Captive Maternal Roundtable” on Joy James’ new book, In Pursuit of Revolutionary Love: Precarity, Power, Communities.
  • Renewed Calls for International Solidarity from Haitian Trade Unions and Civil Society Organizations
    Travis Ross
    Renewed Calls for International Solidarity from Haitian Trade Unions and Civil Society Organizations
    15 Mar 2023
    Haitian trade unions and civil society groups are united in demanding sovereignty for their nation and an end to foreign interference.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us