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


  • Corporate Media Largely Decide Which Black Lives Matter
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley and Glen Ford
    Corporate Media Largely Decide Which Black Lives Matter
    04 May 2020
    A study by sociology professor Alicia Simmons, of Colgate University, found that corporate media journalists sometimes adopt an adversarial relationship with local police, but
  • Late-Stage Racial Capitalism Opened the Door to the Killer Virus
    Glen Ford, BAR Executive Editor
    Late-Stage Racial Capitalism Opened the Door to the Killer Virus
    30 Apr 2020
    The white settler state always inflicts excessive mortality on racially subject peoples, and capitalism inflicts death on large sections of its disproportionately non-white working class and poor.
  • Freedom Rider: Fighting COVID-19 with Mass Action and a People’s Strike
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist
    Freedom Rider: Fighting COVID-19 with Mass Action and a People’s Strike
    29 Apr 2020
    The people’s mass fightback against the system that failed to protect them from the coronavirus and corporate predators begins May 1.
  • Joe Biden and Donald Trump’s Anti-China Campaign Strategy is Part of a Broader Imperialist War Against China
    Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor
    Joe Biden and Donald Trump’s Anti-China Campaign Strategy is Part of a Broader Imperialist War Against China
    29 Apr 2020
    Joe Biden and Donald Trump are taking aim at China to deflect attention away from the American nightmare.
  • DRC’s Virunga: Park, Gorillas, and Rangers All Under Attack
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    DRC’s Virunga: Park, Gorillas, and Rangers All Under Attack
    29 Apr 2020
    Congolese officials are blaming armed Rwandan Hutu refugees for the massacre of twelve rangers and five civilians, but there are any number of other predators that covet the park.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us