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


  • The Philadelphia-based, award-winning artist is the newest member of the Black Agenda Report team.
    Ben Passmore
    BAR Welcomes Political Cartoonist Ben Passmore
    06 Jan 2021
    The Philadelphia-based, award-winning artist is the newest member of the Black Agenda Report team.
  • Will COVID-19 Contact Tracing Expand State Surveillance?
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Will COVID-19 Contact Tracing Expand State Surveillance?
    06 Jan 2021
    The US remains wholly incapable of tracing Covid-19 contagion, but if it tried, we might wind up with “the worst of both worlds” – a horror of coercion and confusion that still failed to stop the e
  • Capitalism on a Ventilator: A New Book Analyzes the Impact of COVID-19 on the U.S. and China
    Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor
    Capitalism on a Ventilator: A New Book Analyzes the Impact of COVID-19 on the U.S. and China
    06 Jan 2021
    While China contained Covid-19 and preserved its economy, the U.S. spins lies while hundreds of thousands of its people die for lack of even a semblance of a national health system.
  • Think…
    Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Think…
    06 Jan 2021
    Think of peoples having the most tanks, the most drones, the most missiles, bombs, aircraft carriers,  guns, ammo and night vision goggles
  • Letters from Our Readers
    BAR Comments Editor Jahan Choudhry
    Letters from Our Readers
    06 Jan 2021
    This week the Black Misleadership Class, sexual violence and colonialism, and the crisis of US imperialism were on your minds.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us