African Americans today face a systemic crisis of mass underemployment, mass imprisonment, and mass disfranchisement.  This comprehensive reader makes clear to students the mutual constitution of these three crises. 

 

 

Introduction: Incarcerating the American Dream: the New Racial Domain, Criminal Justice, and the Prison Industrial Complex--Manning Marable * PART I: THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM AND THE NEW RACIAL DOMAIN * Reconstructing Race and Crime: The Radical Tradition Revisited--Tony Platt * The Condemnation of Little B--Elaine Brown * The Rockefeller Drug Laws--Robert Gangi * Racism and Capital Punishment--George Kendall * In Defense of Mumia--Leonard Weinglass * Living While Black--Charles Ogletree * PART II: WOMEN, VIOLENCE, AND INCARCERATION * The Impact of the Prison Industrial Complex on African-American Women--Natalie J. Sokoloff * Toward a Black Feminist Liberation Agenda: Race, Gender, and Violence--Kristen Clarke * The Female Bogeyman: Political Implications of Criminalizing Black Women--Julia Jordan-Zachary * A bad Relationship: Violence in the Lives of Incarcerated Black Women--Nikki Jones * PART III: RACISM, LAW, AND PUBLIC POLICY * Reassessing Race Specificity in American Law and Public Policy--Lorenzo Morris * “Tell the Court I Love My [Indian] Wife:” Interrogating Race and Self-Identity in Loving v. Virginia--Arica L. Coleman * Resistance, Redemption, and Transformation: African-American Prisoners Living with the HIV/AIDS Virus--Laura T. Fishman * PART IV: FIRST PERSON: INSIDE U.S. PRISONS * “A True Democracy:” Talking with Eddie Ellis--Blanca Vazquez * From Object to Subject: Jazz Hayden--Russell Rickford * Political Prisoners and Black Radicalism--Safiya Bukharl * Political Riddles: Bitten, Seduced, and Fooled--Alejo Dao’ud * A Victim to Passion--Robert Sanchez * What Does the Ghetto Mean?--Robert Sanchez * Manipulator under Manipulation Shh: Mums--Geoff Ward * PART V: VOTING RIGHTS AND DISENFRANCHISEMENT * Felon Voting Rights and the Disenfranchisement of African-Americans--Christopher Uggen, Jeff Manza & Angela Behrans * Jim Crow Is Alive and Well in the 21st Century: Felony Disenfranchisement and the Silencing of the African-American Voice--Ryan Scott King * The Policy of Disfranchisement--Keesha Middlemass * PART VI: CHALLENGING THE PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX * State of Emergency--Angela Y. Davis * From Punishment to Rehabilitation: Empowering African-American Youths--Monique Williams & Isis Sapp-Grant * Crime Prevention in the African-American Community: Lessons from the Nation of Islam--Shaun L. Gabiddon * Wesley Robert Wells and the Civil Rights Congress Campaign--Theodore Hamm * Prepared to Govern Justly--Van Jones