400 Years Of Racism Book Discussion: Locking Up Our Own

Our 400 Years of Racism reading & discussion series continues in 2022. 

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Former public defender James Forman, Jr. is a leading critic of mass incarceration and its disproportionate impact on people of color. In , he seeks to understand the war on crime that began in the 1970s and why it was supported by many African American leaders in the nation's urban centers.Locking Up Our Own

Forman shows us that the first substantial cohort of black mayors, judges, and police chiefs took office amid a surge in crime and drug addiction. Many prominent black officials, including Washington, D.C. mayor Marion Barry and federal prosecutor Eric Holder, feared that the gains of the civil rights movement were being undermined by lawlessness--and thus embraced tough-on-crime measures, including longer sentences and aggressive police tactics. In the face of…