On this eve of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday we host a wide-ranging discussion with TransAfrica founder Randall Robinson and author Michelle Alexander about the mass incarceration of African-Americans that has rolled back many achievements of the civil rights movement. Today there are more African-Americans under correctional control — whether in prison or jail, on probation or on parole — than there were enslaved in 1850. And more African-American men are disenfranchised now because of felon disenfranchisement laws than in 1870. Alexander, whose book “New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness,” is newly released in paperback, argues that, “[n]othing less than a major social movement has any hope of ending mass incarceration in America or inspiring a re-commitment to [Martin Luther] King’s dream. ... My view is that this has got to be a human rights movement: it’s got to be a movement for education, not incarceration; for jobs, not jails. A movement that acknowledges the basic humanity and dignity of all people—no matter who you are or what you have done."Video
Source: Democracy Now!
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