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Advocacy Spotlight:
A New Way of Life
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Every NJC newsletter will feature an extraordinary organization that is dedicated to movement building to end mass incarceration but is not yet receiving the level of funding it needs and deserves.
For this issue, that organization is A New Way of Life. Founded in 1998 by Susan Burton, this remarkable organization provides a lifeline to women returning home from prison and is organizing formerly incarcerated people throughout Southern California to demand restoration of their basic civil and human rights.
To learn more about this phenomenal organization please watch this video and then donate below.
DONATE HERE
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Dear all:
This is the first issue of The New Jim Crow newsletter, and I want to begin by extending a big THANK YOU to all of you who have helped to ensure that the message of this book is heard. It was my greatest hope and prayer when writing the book that it would contribute to the birth of a major social movement---- a human rights movement---- that brings an end to mass incarceration in America and breaks, once and for all, our nation's habit of creating vast new systems of racial and social control. Many said these dreams were foolish and that few would take seriously the claims made in the book no matter how much history, evidence, and data was presented. Their pessimism was misplaced. The response to the book has been overwhelming and fills me with hope that we will, in fact, bend the arc of history toward justice and make America what it must become.
---- Michelle Alexander
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When The New Jim Crow was first published, Barack Obama had just been inaugurated as our nation's first black president and the media was awash with post-racial sentiment, convinced that his election proved that our nation had finally triumphed over race. Hardly any mainstream media outlets were willing to engage with the book or the issues it raised.
Things have changed since then.
During the past year, mainstream media outlets have finally begun to allow the message of the book to be heard. The New York Times has published a few of my op-ed pieces, including "Why Police Lie Under Oath," "Go to Trial: Crash the System," and "In Prison Reform: Money Trumps Civil Rights." C-Span has selected the book for their inaugural online book club. The book has also been featured on CNN, MSNBC, NPR, Charlie Rose, and The Colbert Report. I am especially grateful for Tavis Smiley, Democracy Now!, and Bill Moyers Journal for featuring the book long before it hit the bestseller lists.
Numerous documentary films have been made that feature interviews or themes directly related to the book, including The House I Live In, Broken on All Sides, and The Throwaways. And during the past year social activist and radio documentarian Chris Moore-Backman has created an excellent radio series---- Bringing Down the New Jim Crow---- that explores the intersection of the drug war, mass incarceration, and race in the contemporary United States.
Please use these materials and the many other resources that are available from other authors and advocates to help raise consciousness in your circles of influence---- circles that may include your family (inside or outside of prison), your community, your legislators, or within places of worship, employment, universities, high schools, reentry centers, and more. Links to articles, films, videos, and radio shows can be easily circulated online or shared through social media, used in classrooms, shared in study circles, or forwarded to policymakers. Additional resources---- including books, films, videos and articles by many other authors and advocates-----will soon be posted on the New Jim Crow website.
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Media coverage is important, but what is even more critical are groups of people coming together from all walks of life who are committed to educating themselves, awakening each other, and building a movement that will be truly transformative. Meaningful change will never come if we sit back and imagine that the necessary work will be done by others.
Hundreds of people have formed study groups in a wide variety of settings (in homes, prisons, churches, schools, reentry centers, conferences) as a way of beginning dialogue and consciousness raising. Some of these study circles have evolved into organizing/action groups that are pursuing advocacy in bold and creative ways.
Starting a study circle requires little more than a few people who are willing to bring an open mind.
An outstanding new study guide for The New Jim Crow has just been published by The Veterans of Hope Project, an organization founded by Dr. Vincent Harding---- one of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s closest advisers and speechwriters. The guide is offered as a tribute to Dr. King's life and legacy. It urges people of all faiths, races, ethnicities, and backgrounds to honor King's memory by rising to the challenge that mass incarceration presents.
This study guide is being made available for FREE to all those who are interested in forming a study circle. Please click here to order your study guides and receive assistance planning your study group.
Additional study guides listed below:
The Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference (SDPC), a network of several thousand progressive black churches, has created a faith-based study guide for The New Jim Crow to help facilitate study groups and consciousness raising in black faith communities. Click here to purchase the guide.
The Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) has selected
The New Jim Crow as their 2012-2013 Common Read. Click here to download the UUA New Jim Crow discussion guide.
The Campaign to End the New Jim Crow (CENJC), an organizing project of the Riverside Church Prison Ministry, has created a study guide designed to raise consciousness among readers who are interested in thoughtful reflection on the issues raised in the book, recommended additional resources, and step-by-step guidance. Click here to download the CENJC study guide.
Additional guides, produced by a wide-range of organizations, churches, and individuals, are available. For more information or for assistance starting your own study circle, please contact The New Jim Crow Outreach Coordinator at [email protected]
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It has become abundantly clear since the publication of the book that thousands of people around the country are eager----often desperate----to join the movement to end mass incarceration but have no idea how to get started or how best to make a contribution. Thousands of letters, e-mails, and phone calls have poured in from people across the country (and some from other countries) who want to know what is happening locally and nationally, what organizations are doing great work, or what work needs to be done that hasn't even begun.
We aim to ensure that every person who wants to be part of this movement for justice can find their place and role in it. If you are committed to eradicating mass incarceration and racial caste in America, you have a place in this movement, no matter who you are, what color you may be, where you may live, or what level of education or resources you may have. This movement needs people working inside prisons and outside, young and old, and from all backgrounds.
The New Jim Crow Outreach Coordinator, based in New York City at the offices of my nonprofit publisher, The New Press, is hard at work connecting the dots to create a national network of organizations and individuals who are united by their passion to end mass incarceration. Ultimately, the Outreach Coordinator will create a comprehensive clearinghouse and forum to share strategies and resources, a structure that will make it possible for anyone---- anywhere---- to find a way to connect with the movement on a local, regional, or national level. If you would like to be involved in the growing network, please contact zakia henderson-brown at [email protected].
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