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


  • Reproductive Justice, Human Rights and the Failure of Electoral Politics
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Reproductive Justice, Human Rights and the Failure of Electoral Politics
    26 Aug 2022
    Breya Johnson is Deputy Director of Organizing of Girls for Gender Equity. She joins us to talk about why the political system fails to provide reproductive justice or any other human rights needs.…
  • The American Political Crisis
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    The American Political Crisis
    26 Aug 2022
    We’re joined by Dr. Anthony Monteiro, a Duboisian scholar and founder of the Saturday Free School for Philosophy and Black Liberation, which will celebrate its 10th anniversary in September. We…
  • The Struggle for Bodily Autonomy in Marginalized Communities
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    The Struggle for Bodily Autonomy in Marginalized Communities
    26 Aug 2022
    Mahnker Dahnweh of Freedom, Inc. is co-author of an article which focuses on the struggle for bodily autonomy and the impact of the Supreme Court Dobbs decision on marginalized communities. She…
  • BAR Book Forum: Ren Ellis Neyra’s Book, “The Cry of the Senses”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Ren Ellis Neyra’s Book, “The Cry of the Senses”
    24 Aug 2022
    This week’s featured author is Ren Ellis Neyra. Elis Neyra is Associate Professor of English at Wesleyan University. Their book is The Cry of the Senses: Listening to Latinx and Caribbean Poetics.
  • Liberals Love Liz Cheney
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Liberals Love Liz Cheney
    24 Aug 2022
    When liberals aren't rehabilitating war criminals like George W. Bush they fall in love with right wing republicans like Liz Cheney. They stand for nothing and fall for anything. They are traitors to…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us