MICHELLE
ALEXANDER
T
wo years after the election of America's
first African American president, Michelle Alexander
published
The
New
Jim
Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of
Colorblindness. While many considered
Barack Obama's election evidence that America had
finally moved past race, Alexander wrote that America needs "a radical restructuring of our economy and our
16
FREEDOMRIDERS
60 Years
society in order to ensure that poor people of all colors gain equal access to opportunity, jobs, housing, and
healthcare." During a law career focused on civil rights advocacy and anti-discrimination cases, Alexander had come to the conclusion that, as a result of mass
incarceration, huge numbers of African American men
"are permanently locked into an inferior, second-class status, or caste, by law and custom." g
