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    Locking up Our Own by James Forman Jr. Summary

    Locking up Our Own
    James Forman Jr.
    4.37 (4480 Reviews)
    PoliticsSocietyHistory
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    Overview of Locking up Our Own

    Pulitzer Prize-winning "Locking Up Our Own" explores how Black leaders inadvertently fueled mass incarceration through tough-on-crime policies. Cited in Supreme Court cases and praised by Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, this timely work asks: How did well-intentioned justice become systemic injustice?

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    Best quote from Locking up Our Own

    “

    as black men have more frequently called each other brother, there has been an increase in black killing black.

    ”
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    A Black teenager stands before a Black judge in a Washington D.C. courtroom. The lecture is familiar-wasting opportunities that civil rights heroes died for. Six months in detention for gun and marijuana possession. The judge, prosecutor, bailiff, even the court reporter-all Black. The police chief, the mayor-Black too. How did a majority-Black city end up locking away so many of its own children? This question drives one of the most unsettling revelations in recent American history. After the 1965 Voting Rights Act, African Americans finally gained real political power in cities like D.C. Yet the policies they helped shape-born from genuine concern, limited options, and unforeseeable consequences-would contribute to creating the world's largest prison system. This isn't a simple story of oppression from above. It's far more complicated, and far more human.

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    The Worst Thing Since Slavery

    6

    The Problem with "Nonviolent Offenders"

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    One Person, One Mercy at a Time