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

“Respectable” Black Women Fought Mass Incarceration
Black Agenda Radio with Nellie Bailey and Glen Ford
02 Mar 2020
🖨️ Print Article

Back in the days when 90 percent of southern prison inmates were Black, socially conservative Black clubwomen fought for prison reform, believing that “putting Black women in jail was hurting the Black community,” said Nikki Brown, professor of history at the University of New Orleans. The National Association of Colored Women, who practiced what we today call “respectability” politics, played a key role in creating alternatives to incarceration, said Brown, who authored an article titled, “Keeping Black Motherhood Out of Prison: Prison Reform and Woman-Saving in the Progressive Era.”

Mass Black Incarceration

Related Podcasts

Involuntary Servitude in the Prison System
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Involuntary Servitude in the Prison System
24 June 2022
Savannah Eldrige is the founder of Coaliton to Abolish Slave
White Capitalist Law vs “Uncontrollable Blackness”
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
White Capitalist Law vs “Uncontrollable Blackness”
01 September 2020
The United States “criminalizes Black Americans,” but Black men “are not looking to be controlled” by this racist system, said Douglas
 Getting Out the Word: #PrisonsKill
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
Getting Out the Word: #PrisonsKill
25 August 2020
The Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee, IWOC, “is committed to the militant organizing of prisoners that takes its leadership and focus from

More Stories


  • South Africa anti-immigration march
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    South Africa's "March and March" Collaborates with Right Wing Afrikaners
    02 Oct 2026
    Our guest is Nairobi based political writer and strategist Clinton Nzala. He joins us to provide an update and an analysis of the South African anti-migrant March and March movement, which is…
  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Defending a Non-Existent International Law
    30 Sep 2026
    The Hague Group’s goal is to “. . . take coordinated legal and diplomatic measures against Israel’s violations of international law.” But international law was never a reality.
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    LETTER: “We See Preparations for a Direct Military Intervention by the United States and Its Allies,” Fidel Castro, 1990
    30 Sep 2026
    “I believe that the Movement of Nonaligned Countries…can buttress the united will of the Arab nation and help it to prevail against intervention and aggression.”
  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Don’t Believe the Hype: Revolutionary Eritrea Sustains Sovereignty Over Its Red Sea Coast
    30 Sep 2026
    There is no evidence that Eritrea has surrendered its Red Sea Coast in exchange for relief from US sanctions.
  • Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    U.S. Liberal Media Literacy Guide: “This Isn’t Who We Are”
    30 Sep 2026
    The liberal news media treat U.S. violence and oppression as aberrations from the country's founding ideals rather than expressions of its fundamental character as a settler colony, empire,…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us