Social Movements & the Law

Some call it Hurricane Katrina. Some call it the Federal Flood. Others call it the day the levees broke. On August 29, 2005, the city of New Orleans was submerged. That story of hubris, incompetence, and nature's wrath is now etched into the national consciousness. But the people who lived through the flood and its aftermath have a different story to tell. A story of rumors, betrayal, and one of the most misunderstood events in American history. Hosted by Vann R. Newkirk II.

"A ground-breaking, personal exploration of America's obsession with continuing human bondage from the editor of the New York Times-bestselling Barracoon. Freedom and equality are the watchwords of American democracy. But like justice, freedom and equality are meaningless when there is no corresponding practical application of the ideals they represent. Physical, bodily liberty is fundamental to every American's personal sovereignty. And yet, millions of Americans-including author Deborah Plant's brother, whose life sentence at Angola Prison reveals a shocking current parallel to her academic work on the history of slavery in America-are deprived of these basic freedoms every day. In her studies of Zora Neale Hurston, Deborah Plant became fascinated by Hurston's explanation for the atrocities of the international slave trade. In her memoir, Dust Tracks on a Road, Hurston wrote: "But the inescapable fact that stuck in my craw, was: my people had sold me and the white people had bought me. . . . It impressed upon me the universal nature of greed and glory." We look the other way when the basic human rights of marginalized and stigmatized groups are violated and desecrated, not realizing that only the practice of justice everywhere secures justice, for any of us, anywhere. An active vigilance is required of those who would be and remain free; with Of Greed and Glory, Deborah Plant reveals the many ways in which slavery continues in America today and charts our collective course toward personal sovereignty for all." --

American Libraries senior editor and Call Number host Phil Morehart speaks with New York Times journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, creator of the 1619 Project and honorary chair of Preservation Week, about the project’s origins, her team’s research, and why community archives are vital to preserving history. If you have feedback for the podcast team, email us or … Continue reading Call Number Podcast: A Conversation with Nikole Hannah-Jones →

"Legal decisions continue to mystify: Why was this person convicted and that person acquitted of the same crime? Why did she sue for breach of contract and he did not? Legal rules are supposed to provide answers to these questions, but their answers are radically incomplete. Wouldn't it be wonderful to have a theory that explained legal decisions, which predicted how legal cases are likely to be brought and decided? Drawing on Donald Black's theory of the behavior of law, Geometrical Justice: The Death Penalty in America aims to offer some answers, looking specifically at who receives the death penalty in the US. Drawing on large datasets, including the Baldus study which demonstrated racial bias in sentencing decisions, this book considers the ways in which social characteristics such as race, class, moral reputation, organizational status affect legal decision making, and the wide discrepancies in the use of capital punishment. Geometrical Justice will be of interest to those engaged in criminal justice, criminology and socio-legal studies, as well as students taking courses on sentencing, corrections and capital punishment"--

Each episode of the Black History Buff Podcast will take you on a thrilling journey through a chapter of Black History. Covering the full historical tapestry of the African Diaspora you’ll hear tales covering everything from African Samurai’s to pistol wielding poets. So take a seat kick back relax and enjoy the show.

"A demonstration of how wrongful convictions have transformed American criminal justice, and how political ideology divides and shapes the innocence movement's fight for reform"--

America was founded on the ideal of democracy. Black people fought to make it one.

"Stolen Wealth, Hidden Power contends that the deep economic inequality and racial disparities that Americans take for granted have been quietly held in place by the four-decade campaign of racialized state violence known as mass incarceration. Tasseli McKay presents detailed evidence that the steep direct costs of mass-scale imprisonment are far overshadowed by its hidden costs and harms, many of which have been kept out of sight by women's invisible labor. Finding that the economic value of the damages to Black individuals, families, and communities totals $7.13 trillion--a sum equivalent to 85 percent of the current Black-White household wealth gap--McKay points to the urgency and feasibility of reparation and to the possibilities that lie beyond it"--Provided by publisher.

Historian Kerri Greenidge tells the story of William Monroe Trotter, a Black newspaper editor who was a forceful crusader for civil rights in the early 20th century. He built a national following in his time as a fierce advocate for the full citizenship rights that had been promised to former enslaved people after the Civil War. Trotter organized mass protests, confronted presidents, and openly challenged leaders such as Booker T. Washington who took a more cautious approach to Black empowerment. Greenidge's new book is called 'Black Radical.'

"The first comprehensive history of probation and parole-and a provocative and compelling argument for abolishing both-from the former Probation Commissioner of New York City"--

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X are frequently seen as opposing forces in the struggle for civil rights, but Black Power scholar Dr. Peniel Joseph says the truth is more nuanced. His new book, 'The Sword and the Shield,' braids together the lives of the two civil rights revolutionaries.

Injustice, Inc. : how America's justice system commodifies children and the poor-book

Listen to this episode from Resistance on Spotify. In the low country of South Carolina the Gullah Geechee are engaged in a fight to preserve their land and determine their destiny. You can find the transcript for this episode here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

"A groundbreaking look at how America exported mass incarceration around the globe, from a rising young historian"--

Michelle Singletary has an honest conversation about affirmative action. And, we take your questions about voting this year, starting with a listener in California.

"From the struggles of childhood abuse to becoming a female police officer, this book tells the story of a woman's journey through the male dominated world of law enforcement. Through this personal account and unique perspective, a better understanding of policing strengths and weaknesses is gained"--

A new five-part series about building a better school system, and what gets in the way. New episodes of “Nice White Parents” are available here, brought to you by Serial Productions and The New York Times.

"From the fearless defense attorney and civil rights lawyer who rose to fame with Netflix's The Staircase comes an essential examination of America's corrupt and abusive criminal justice system"--;In the past thirty years more than 2,800 innocent American prisoners- their combined sentences surpassing 25,000 years- have been exonerated and freed after being condemned for crimes they did not commit. This number represents only a fraction of the actual number of persons wrongfully accused and convicted over the same period. Rudolf draws from his years of experience in the American criminal legal system to shed light on the misconduct that exists at all levels of law enforcement and the tragic consequences that follow in its wake. He revisits unsolved murders to detail how and why the true culprits were never prosecuted; reveals how confirmation bias leads police and prosecutors to employ tactics that make wrongful arrests and prosecutions more likely; and exposes how poverty and racism fundamentally distort the system. - adapted from jacket

Guardian columnist Nesrine Malik, The Intercept’s Murtaza Hussain, and historian Kathleen Belew are this week’s guests.

"This work focuses on the stories of several individuals who died while in custody to illustrate the long history of policy and practice that at best provides toothless regulation (often unfunded, or without accountable parties), and at worst is officially dismissive of the human lives lost, deliberately making it harder to get to the truth. The authors also tell the stories of activists and journalists, who have often been the ones making the greatest effort to uncover the true scope of deaths in custody"--;"The United States significantly undercounts the number of people who die in law enforcement custody each year. How can we fix this?Deaths resulting from interactions with the US criminal legal system are a public health emergency, but the scope of this issue is intentionally ignored by the very systems that are supposed to be tracking these fatalities. We don't know how many people die in custody each year, whether in an encounter with police on the street, during transport, or while in jails, prisons, or detention centers. In order to make a real difference and address this human rights problem, researchers and policy makers need reliable data. In Death in Custody, Roger A. Mitchell Jr., MD, and Jay D. Aronson, PhD, share the stories of individuals who died in custody and chronicle the efforts of activists and journalists to uncover the true scope of deaths in custody. From Ida B. Wells's enumeration of extrajudicial lynchings more than a century ago to the Washington Post's current effort to count police shootings, the work of journalists and independent groups has always been more reliable than the state's official reports. Through historical analysis, Mitchell and Aronson demonstrate how government at all levels has intentionally avoided reporting death-in-custody data. Mitchell and Aronson outline a practical, achievable system for accurately recording and investigating these deaths. They argue for a straightforward public health solution: adding a simple checkbox to the US Standard Death Certificate that would create an objective way of recording whether a death occurred in custody. They also propose the development of national standards for investigating deaths in custody and the creation of independent regional and federal custodial death review panels. These tangible solutions would allow us to see the full scope of the problem and give us the chance to truly address it"--

What can we learn from the writings of James Baldwin, a Civil Rights era thinker who, in exploring injustice, treated the whole person, body and soul, as subject?

"When twenty-six-year-old recent college graduate Aswad Thomas was days away from starting a professional basketball career in 2009, he was shot twice while buying juice at a convenience store. The trauma left him in excruciating pain, with mounting medical debt, and struggling to cope with deep anxiety and fear. That was the same year the national incarceration rate peaked. Yet, despite thousands of new tough-on-crime policies and billions of new dollars pumped into "justice," Aswad never received victim compensation, support, or even basic levels of concern. In the name of victims, justice bureaucracies ballooned while most victims remained on their own. In In Their Names, Lenore Anderson, president of one of the nation's largest reform advocacy organizations, offers a close look at how the political call to help victims in the 1980s morphed into a demand for bigger bureaucracies and more incarceration, and cemented the long-standing chasm that exists between most victims and the justice system. She argues that the powerful myth that mass incarceration benefits victims obscures recognition of what most victims actually need, including addressing their trauma, which is a leading cause of subsequent violent crime. A solutions-oriented, paradigm-shifting book, In Their Names argues persuasively for closing the gap between our public safety systems and crime survivors"--

"Fill the void. Lift your voice. Say Her Name. Black women, girls, and femmes as young as seven and as old as ninety-three have been killed by the police, though we rarely hear their names or learn their stories. Breonna Taylor, Alberta Spruill, Rekia Boyd, Shantel Davis, Shelly Frey, Kayla Moore, Kyam Livingston, Miriam Carey, Michelle Cusseaux, and Tanisha Anderson are among the many lives that should have been. #SayHerName provides an analytical framework for understanding Black women's susceptibility to police brutality and state-sanctioned violence, and it explains how--through Black feminist storytelling and ritual--we can effectively mobilize various communities and empower them to advocate for racial justice. Centering Black women's experiences in police violence and gender violence discourses sends the powerful message that, in fact, all Black lives matter and that the police cannot kill without consequence. This is a powerful story of Black feminist practice, community-building, enablement, and Black feminist reckoning."--Amazon.com.

Professor Dorothy Brown of Emory University became a "detective," searching for data on how the tax code impacts Black Americans.

The history of the U.S. criminal justice system is marked by racial inequality and sustained by present day policy. Large racial and ethnic disparities exist across the several stages of criminal legal processing, including in arrests, pre-trial detention, and sentencing and incarceration, among others, with Black, Latino, and Native Americans experiencing worse outcomes. The historical legacy of racial exclusion and structural inequalities form the social context for racial inequalities in crime and criminal justice. Racial inequality can drive disparities in crime, victimization, and system involvement.Reducing Racial Inequality in Crime and Justice: Science, Practice, and Policy synthesizes the evidence on community-based solutions, noncriminal policy interventions, and criminal justice reforms, charting a path toward the reduction of racial inequalities by minimizing harm in ways that also improve community safety. Reversing the effects of structural racism and severing the close connections between racial inequality, criminal harms such as violence, and criminal justice involvement will involve fostering local innovation and evaluation, and coordinating local initiatives with state and federal leadership.This report also highlights the challenge of creating an accurate, national picture of racial inequality in crime and justice: there is a lack of consistent, reliable data, as well as data transparency and accountability. While the available data points toward trends that Black, Latino, and Native American individuals are overrepresented in the criminal justice system and given more severe punishments compared to White individuals, opportunities for improving research should be explored to better inform decision-making.

Be Antiracist imagines what an antiracist society might look like and how we all can play an active role in building one. Dr. Ibram X. Kendi is the author of How to Be an Antiracist, the book that spurred a nationwide conversation redefining what it means to be antiracist, and in this podcast, he guides listeners how they can identify and reject the racist systems hiding behind racial inequity and injustice. Alongside notable guests, Dr. Kendi continues his journey towards building a just and equitable world and proposes how we can all help create it with him.

"An original argument that the answer to mass incarceration lies not with experts and pundits, but with ordinary people taking extraordinary actions together-written by a leading authority on bail reform and social movements"--

NPR'S partnership with the race card project explores a different kind of conversation about race.

Show About Race Podcast with Anna Holmes, Baratunde Thurston, Raquel Cepeda, and Tanner Colby. Plus special guests!

"A legendary lawyer and a legal scholar reveal the structural failures that undermine justice in our criminal courts. The Fear of Too Much Justice offers a timely, trenchant, firsthand critique of our criminal courts and points the way toward a more just future"--