Tag Archives: Jim Crow
‘The Penal System Today is Slavery’: Lawmakers Finally Start to Talk About Unpaid Labor in Texas Prisons
The 13th Amendment left a loophole for prisoners to be forced to work without pay. Texas remains one of five states that exploits the carveout for state profit.
Inmates in Texas make license plates, grow crops, tend to cattle, make soap and clothing, refurbish buses and computers, build furniture and more. They’re req...Read More
Cruz’s Reaction to ‘New Jim Crow’ Comments Ignores the Racist Roots of Mass Incarceration
O’Rourke talks racial disparities in the justice system; Cruz goes nuclear and embraces the politics of policing, revealing an aversion to confronting our dark past.
Several minutes into his first televised showdown with Beto O’Rourke on Friday, Senator Ted Cruz dove into a controversy that had dominated right-wing media, ...Read More
The Interview: Paul Quinn College’s Michael Sorrell
The president of Paul Quinn College on bringing a historically black institution back from the brink.
The president of Paul Quinn College discusses police violence, student debt and bringing a historically black institution back from the brink....Read More
The Interview: Frank Jackson
Prairie View’s longtime mayor on Sandra Bland and Texas’ legacy of racial trauma.
Prairie View’s longtime mayor talks about Sandra Bland and Texas’ legacy of racial trauma, including 'post-traumatic slave syndrome.'...Read More
Julian Bond at LBJ School: ‘Jim Crow May be Dead, but Racism is Alive and Well’
At the LBJ School yesterday, Julian Bond said the election of Barack Obama doesn't mean we’ve achieved a post-racial society....Read More
Right (and Wrong) on Crime
For all the praise heaped on Texas for criminal justice reform, we’ve barely even begun the thaw.
After 14 years of enthusiastic prison-building, Perry is taking credit for a tiny softening in his rhetoric on crime just in time for a presidential run....Read More
Michelle Alexander Calls for an End to Mass Incarceration
When Mitt Romney’s comments about the 47 percent came to light, perhaps the most shocking part was made of two words rattled off in a list that ended with “...Read More