Rikers Island, Slave Catching, and the Modern Carceral State | Black Agenda Report

Rikers Island, Slave Catching, and the Modern Carceral State

Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley

07 Mar 2025

🖨️ Print Article

Black Agenda Radio · Rikers Island, Slave Catching, and the Modern Carceral State

Darren Mack is co-founder and co-director of Freedom Agenda, an organization devoted to decarceration and system transformation, including closing the Rikers Island jail. In commenting on New York City mayor Eric Adams' plan to allow ICE to operate on Rikers Island, Darren Mack pointed out the history behind the name. Richard Riker was a New York City judge who worked with slave catchers and the kidnappers who captured fleeing enslaved people and free Black New Yorkers to send them to slavery in the south. Darren Mack joins us from New York City to discuss this history, the need to close Rikers Island, and the historical connections with the modern-day carceral state.

Rikers Island

Incarceration

Slavery

New York City

Eric Adams

More Stories

Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor
When Austerity’s Chickens Came Home to Roost in the U.S., Bernie and “the Squad” were Unprepared
16 Dec 2020
The theory of change that depicts the likes of Bernie Sanders and AOC as the leaders of the class struggle has failed to materialize in reality.
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Imagine: The Town Crier’s Cabinet Selections
16 Dec 2020
Cut plastic cuffs from imaginations— Dream larger in dire situations… IMAGINE every cook governing— every governor cooking up people puzzles—right livelihood alchemy…
Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
Agenda 2021: Resist the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination
16 Dec 2020
It is critical that the Black left understand U.S./European imperialism as a race project, and organize accordingly.
Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
The Planet’s Problem from Hell: Samantha Power
16 Dec 2020
As head of USAID, Power will be in perfect position to wield foreign aid as a cudgel for beating foreign heads of state till they bow to US empire, writes Ann Garrison.
BAR Comments Editor Jahan Choudhry
Letters from Our Readers
16 Dec 2020
This week the incoming administration was on your minds.