“Respectable” Black Women Fought Mass Incarceration | Black Agenda Report

“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

More Stories

The Tricontinental
The PAIGC’s Political Education for Liberation in Guinea-Bissau, 1963–74 (Part 2)
03 Aug 2022
Liberation struggles are not fought only on the battlefield. The African Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde (PAIGC) left a legacy of educational decolonization.
Benjamin Norton
Polls Show Almost No One Trusts US Media, After Decades of War Propaganda and Lies
03 Aug 2022
Jacqueline Luqman
Biden Could Cancel Your Loan If He Wasn’t Busy Arming Cops and Ukraine
03 Aug 2022
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Black Agenda Radio July 29, 2022
29 Jul 2022
Glen Ford debating Michael Eric Dyson on Democracy Now in 2008, the abuses of the child welfare system in North Carolina, and residents of the University City Town Homes in Philadelphia face mass…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Glen Ford and Michael Eric Dyson 2008 Debate on Democracy Now
29 Jul 2022
On January 9, 2008 Glen Ford debated Michael Eric Dyson on the program Democracy Now. The topic of discussion was Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.