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


  • Wizard of Oz redux—  …and some casting questions…
    Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Wizard of Oz redux— …and some casting questions…
    24 Aug 2022
                                                           â€¦
  • BAR Book Forum: Boukary Sawadogo’s Book, “Africans in Harlem”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Boukary Sawadogo’s Book, “Africans in Harlem”
    24 Aug 2022
    This week’s featured author is Boukary Sawadogo. Sawadogo is Associate Professor of Cinema Studies and Black Studies at City College–City University of New York. His book is Africans in Harlem: An…
  • “Revolutionary Organizing: An Interview with Ahjamu Umi”
    Ahjamu Umi , Roberto Sirvent
    “Revolutionary Organizing: An Interview with Ahjamu Umi”
    24 Aug 2022
    Ahjamu Umi and Roberto Sirvent discuss revolutionary organizing.
  • Why the Inflation Reduction Act is Less a “Climate Bill” and More a Poison Pill for Black and Indigenous Communities and Movements
    Anthony Rogers-Wright
    Why the Inflation Reduction Act is Less a “Climate Bill” and More a Poison Pill for Black and Indigenous Communities and Movements
    24 Aug 2022
    Among other problematic issues, the so-called climate provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act allow for more oil drilling on federal lands. Greenwashing and Democratic party duplicity are â€¦
  • The Unknown Connection Between Marcus Garvey and Ho Chi Minh
    Ahjamu Umi
    The Unknown Connection Between Marcus Garvey and Ho Chi Minh
    24 Aug 2022
    While Marcus Garvey organized the United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in the 1920s a young Ho Chi Minh lived in Harlem and analyzed the connections between all oppressed people.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us