“More African American men are in prison or jail, on probation or parole than were enslaved in 1850, before the Civil War began"

The U.S. criminal justice system functions as a contemporary means of racial control, even as it formally adheres to the principle of color blindness... [Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow]...challenges the civil rights community—and all of us—to place mass incarceration at the forefront of a new movement for racial justice in America.

“More African American men are in prison or jail, on probation or parole than were enslaved in 1850, before the Civil War began,” Michelle Alexander told a standing room only house at the Pasadena Main Library this past Wednesday, the first of many jarring points she made in a riveting presentation.-More Black Men Now in Prison System than Were Enslaved