1. 1
It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back: The War on Drugs, Mass Incarceration,
and a Call to Action for America's Black Youth
By
Carl L. Young
An Alternative Plan Paper Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the
Degree Master of Science
In
Sociology: Corrections
Minnesota State University, Mankato
Mankato, Minnesota
Spring 2013
Final Draft 4/20/2013

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This Alternative Plan Paper has been examined and approved by the following members
of the Examining Committee.
_____________________
Dr. Leah Rogne, Advisor
_____________________
Dr. William Wagner
_____________________
Dr. Penny Jo Rosenthal
_____________________
Dr. Nadarajan Sethuraju
________________
Date

3. 3
Abstract
This alternative plan paper examines the circumstances that have evolved as a
result of the Reagan Administration’s War on Drugs and the increase of mass
incarceration of the Black community. In the last thirty years, the federal government of
the United States of America has engaged in campaign known as the “War on Drugs,”
which has involved a variety of policies to stop the production, distribution and sale of
illegal narcotics. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent in a war that has
targeted the most vulnerable in our society, impacting its youth for generations to come.
This alternative plan paper addresses the impact of the War on Drugs and the criminal
justice policies that have impacted the life chances of Black youth nationwide and calls
for a new social movement, introducing a 21st
century Black Youth Manifesto to ask the
youth of the Black community to pick up where previous social movements left off and
take back their communities, their families, and reclaim their hope for the future.

4. 4
Table of Contents
Abstract . . . .
Chapter One: Introduction
 My Generation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
 Strain and Adaption: The Ideas of Merton and Durkheim
 Strain, Adaptation, and Life Changes: My Story
 The Reagan Effect
 Race and Ethnicity and Reagan’s Rise to Power
 Reagan and Civil Rights
 Reagan and the War on Drugs
Chapter Two: Literature Review……………………………. 20
 Weber and the Concept of Life Chances (1ST
level)
 Key Criminal Justice Legislation in The War on Drugs (1st level)
 The Rockefeller Drug Laws (2nd
level)
 Consequences of the Rockefeller Drug Laws (3rd
level)
 California’s Three Strikes and You’re Out Law (2nd
)
 Consequences of the Three Strikes and You’re Out Law (3rd
)
 The Violent Crime Control & Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (2nd
)
Consequences of the Violent Crime Control & Law Enforcement
Act of 1994 (3rd
)
 Overall Consequences of These Three Crime Bills (2nd
)
Chapter Three: The New Abolition Movement…………… 38
 A Call To Action: A 21ST
Century Manifesto For Black Youth
 Historical Perspective
 Slavery
 Jim Crow
 Mass Incarceration
 Historical Social Movements For Resistance
 The Abolitionist Movement
 The New Abolitionist Movement
 Who Needs To Do It
 How It Should Be Done
 Conclusion…………………………………………65

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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
MY GENERATION
We are accustomed to every generation being given a name. In the 1960s there
was the flower power generation or love generation. People born in the 1970s have been
called Generation X and those born in the 1980s Generation Y, cohorts said to be
exceptionally wired, networked, and plugged in. If you came of age in the inner cities of
America in the 1980s during the Reagan era, those generational terms meant little to you.
Rebellion, love, and access to technology didn’t even seem possible. President Ronald
Reagan’s fiscal cuts of social programs that had helped to keep kids off the streets and
hold communities together were devastating. Add to that the recession and the loss of
economic and job employment opportunities, and you have a Molotov cocktail just
waiting to explode in the inner cities. All it needed was a spark, and that spark came in
the form of an illegal narcotic that went on to truly be the name of my generation living
in the inner cities: the Crack Generation.
Imagine growing up in an environment where you are seeing people struggling to
make ends meet, keep their lights on, put food on the table, and keep a roof over their
heads, yet at the same time not too far away, you are also seeing people are not having
that experience, people who have everything you would like to have.

6. 6
What would you be prepared to do to change your situation? Would you seek out
ways to educate yourself in hopes that maybe you could better your situation, or would
you feel that is something you couldn't attain and seek another route to change your
economic status, which is sell drugs, commit robbery? What choices would you make
when you feel all of your opportunities are limited?
If you are a law abiding, impressionable young person struggling with no
emotional compass, no balance, and no parental guidance, and someone comes to you
and asks you to work for them and all you have to do is stand on a street corner for a few
hours and make $2000 or you could fill out a job application at McDonald’s and work for
$4.25 hour and at the end of the week maybe have $150, what would you do, what
choices would you make? In 1995 director Spike Lee released a movie chronicling these
choices. The film, Clockers, was based on the best-selling novel by Richard Price. For
those unaware of the language used in the streets to identify drug dealers, “Clockers” is
the code name for street level drug dealers who work around the clock on an organized
schedule. The film is a very bleak and insightful outlook at the problems that have been
plaguing the Black Community since the infusion of drugs. The film addresses mothers,
fathers, young people and law enforcement officials, while taking a brutal look at drugs,
guns, violence, and life in the inner city as a result of illegal narcotics infiltrating the
inner city (Ebert 1995).
Imagine being a young teenager mother who becomes overwhelmed with the
stress and strain of raising a child, who financially and emotionally is barely hanging on
with no food in the house, no diapers for the baby, no help from the father of the child, no
support system at home, and no other resources available to them.

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Imagine being a young Black or male/female living in the inner city, who has no
support system, mother/father barely able to keep food on the table and pay the rent,
seeing nothing but violence, poverty, degradation, no job opportunities, and an
educational system that is not meeting your needs.
What do you do? Do you attempt to work hard and educate yourself to be able to
find opportunities to earn the things we need in a law-abiding way, or do you look for fast
money to achieve the things that you want and desire?
STRAIN AND ADAPTATION: THE IDEAS OF MERTON AND DURKHEIM
In his theory of anomie, Merton (1957) offered a typology of adaptations based on
the individual’s acceptance or rejection of cultural goals and institutionalized means to
realize the goals. Anomie theory provides an explanation of the concentration of crime.
The theory leans heavily on the work Emile Durkheim, who used the term anomie to
describe the lack of social regulation in modern societies as one factor that could elevate
suicide rates.
Merton, a criminologist, applied Durkheim's definition of anomie to modern
industrial societies. Merton was writing in America during a time when there was
inequality and discrimination between ethnic groups. Merton observed that not all
individuals within society have an equal chance of success; he believed that inequality in
society blocked people from attaining the means needed to achieve their goals. Many
Americans were aiming to achieve “the American dream,” and he was interested in how
they pursued their goals, and whether or not dreams were equally attainable to everyone.
(Merton 1957:121)

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Like Durkheim, Merton held that crime and deviance were caused by society.
According to Merton (1957), “the functional analyst considers socially deviant behavior
just as much a product of social structure as conformist behavior” (p. 121). But Merton's
view of deviance is different from Durkheim’s. While Durkheim believed that identifying
deviance is a demonstration of society’s norms, and serves as a barometer of cohesion
and change, Merton held that “crime does not generate social solidarity or social progress
and that crime and deviance demonstrate poor societal organization” (Merton 1978:378).
Merton suggested that society does not evolve from mechanical to organic
solidarity but that society is constantly changing and generating new goals, if not
necessarily the means by which to achieve these goals. According to Merton, anomie is
the form that societal incoherence takes when there is a significant detachment "between
valued cultural ends and legitimate societal means to those ends" (Akers 2000: 161).
Merton suggested that society does not evolve from mechanical to organic
solidarity but that society is constantly changing and generating new goals, if not
necessarily the means by which to achieve these goals. According to Merton, anomie is
the form that societal incoherence takes when there is a significant detachment "between
valued cultural ends and legitimate societal means to those ends" (Akers 2000:161).
This anomie leads to strain, which according to Merton (1957), starts with the
general assumption that society provides both culturally valued goals and culturally
valued means. These goals are based on the shared assumptions in a society about what
people should strive for in their individual lives—that is, what constitutes success.

9. 9
In this country to achieve the “American Dream,” we emphasize education and
hard work. Doing this would allow you to have a nice car, nice clothes, money in your
pocket and the ability to own a home in a nice neighborhood with others who are just like
you. The problem with this assumption is what happens when there is an imbalance
between the goals and the means? Specifically, what happens when a society doesn’t
provide the means necessary for everyone to accomplish the goals it sets out for them?
This means that there are some people in society who are working for something that
they probably can’t obtain because of the lack of opportunity and resources. The result of
this, according to Merton, is something called strain, an unpleasant emotional condition.
In his classic work Suicide (1897) Durkheim classified strain into two basic
categories: social processes and personal experiences. These in turn produced two
general types of strain: structural and individual. Social processes create the
environment necessary for the development of structural strain, and personal
experiences cause individual strain. Structural strain applies to members of society
who determine their needs based on the ideals of society and are in a constant
struggle to meet those expectations.
Individual strain is the personally created stress applied by individuals while
searching for a means of meeting their needs that are defined by their personal
expectations that they hold for themselves (O’Connor 2003).

10. 10
According to general strain theory, as aspirations increase and expectations
decline delinquency and the amount of deviant acts that occur increase. Merton
recognized that certain expectations were created by the two general types of strain and
identified five specific “modes of adaptation” to these strains (Akers 2000).
1. Conformity - People strive to obtain success by the most pure conventional means
available (Akers 2000).
2. Innovation - People seek success by using innovation. Their purpose is to obtain the
success by taking advantage of any illegal means available to them in place of legal
means in order to attain their conventional goals (Akers 2000).
3. Rebellion – People have completely rejected the idea that everybody in society can
achieve success. They no longer trust legitimate means to reach success and have
replaced such ideas with irrational objectives to overthrow the system (Akers 2000).
4. Retreatism – Described by Merton as an escapist response, retreatism occurs when
people become dropouts of society. They give up all goals and efforts to achieve success
because they view it as an impractical, impossible, almost imaginary, and irrational
possibility (Akers 2000).
5. Ritualism – In this final mode, people realize that they have no real opportunity to
advance in society and accept the little relevance they have. They adhere to conventional
norms in the hopes of maintaining the few possessions or possible gains that they have
attained (Akers 2000).

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Strain, Adaptation, and Life Chances: My Story
I could be another grim statistic as a Black male, because I had none of the
opportunities mainstream society says is required to attain balance. How do we learn
what we believe? How do we balance what we need and want and our ability to attain
them? In most cases seeing another human being killed will evoke a powerful emotional
response in most people; yet others may feel emotionally unaffected.
A great deal of emphasis is placed in the current popular discourse on the
importance of having intact families and having strong father figures present in the home
as key sources of shaping what we believe and how we behave. But it isn’t that simple. I
didn't know my own father. From the time I was two weeks old my grandmother raised
me. She struggled but made sure I was loved. I can count on my hands and feet the times
I had actually seen my mother. I grew up in the inner city. These would all be considered
negatives.
I know what it’s like to come home from school and the lights are off because the
bill couldn't be paid. I know what it was like to not always get everything I felt I needed
or what I wanted as a child. So I can relate to those who have faced that struggle because
I faced it. The one thing I did have, however, was the opportunity to travel and in 1983 at
the age of 13 I left the United States for Frankfurt, Germany, where I spent a year with
my aunt and uncle who were stationed there in the United States Army.

12. 12
When I left South Florida, the War on Drugs had not yet hit my home state. Crack
had yet to be invented, and the area I grew up in was very peaceful. I found it interesting
spending a year of my teenage life in a country that had a notorious history just forty odd
years before yet I never felt any sense of racial discrimination or class struggle as I
moved about the German community every day during my time there. I felt totally at ease
in my own skin and accepted as such and very much welcomed.
My stay in Germany changed my life. Having the opportunity to see different
parts of Europe, Sweden, France, Holland, Italy, and England changed my worldview and
altered my life. I felt a veil had been removed from my eyes and I was able to see the
larger world. This one opportunity helped change my life’s chances. However, when I
returned home to the United States in 1984 and attended high school, everything had
changed. Marijuana had been replaced by cocaine as the drug of choice. Life had gotten
faster and more dangerous. The energy in the neighborhood had changed and so did the
attitudes of the people. I was now seeing friends I grew up with playing in the streets all
of a sudden driving nice cars, having pagers, wearing nicer clothes, and gold jewelry
whereas two years before we were collecting bottles to recycle for money to buy candy.
I began to wonder what happened, and how did it happen so quickly, knowing
they were not working for these things, or at least working in the law-abiding sense of the
word. How did crack cocaine get into the Black Community and not Beverly Hills,
Minnetonka Beach or South Hampton? We owned no land to grow opium poppy seeds to
produce cocaine; we had no wealth and natural resources to barter with South American
drug dealers to secure large ship of drugs on consignment?

13. 13
Why were we chosen for this economic opportunity? If what Durkheim was
saying is true, then in two years my neighborhood became unbalanced by these very real
choices that had to be made when illegal narcotics were introduced into the Black
Community.
On a personal level, this topic means a great deal to me. My life chances along
with the life chances of millions of others all over the United States were affected by
President Reagan’s domestic policies. I have lost eight relatives and a mother from either
incarceration or death as a result of the War on Drugs. It is my hope that this research
paper helps us to understand the cost that was paid and is still being paid as a result of the
mass incarceration that occurred as a result of President Ronald Reagan’s War on Drugs.
In this paper I examine the effect of the War on Drugs and the criminal justice
policies that have impacted the life chances of Black youth nationwide. I briefly review
the consequences of three institutional means of oppression of the Black Community:
slavery, Jim Crow segregation, and mass incarceration and the social movements that
helped end the first of those two eras. Finally, I present a call to action to Black youth to
become involved in a New Abolition Movement to end mass incarceration and address
the problems that it has created in the Black Community in the United States.

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THE REAGAN EFFECT
The Founding Fathers knew a government couldn’t control the economy without
controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that; it must
use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. So we have come to a time for
choosing.
Ronald Reagan 1964 (Harris and Tichenor 2009:384)
To determine how President Ronald Reagan’s War on Drugs has affected the life
chances of Black youth, one has to first understand the history of the Black Community
in this country. The history of Black Americans in the United States is steeped with
racism, servitude, injustice, inequality, hostility, degradation, and death. Our lives are
shaped by who we are, what we are and where we come from. What race or ethnic group
we belong to determines our life chances in contemporary society.
Race and Ethnicity and Reagan’s Rise to Power
The thesaurus defines ethnicity as the cultural background of a group of people
who share a belief in common ancestry (Merriam Webster 2013). According to Max
Weber’s study Ethnic Groups, Economy and Society (as cited in Driedger 1987), the
belief in group affinity, regardless of whether it has any objective foundation, can have
important consequences especially for the formation of a political community. Ethnic
membership in itself does not constitute a group; it only facilitates group formation,
particularly in the political sphere. However it is the political community, no matter how
artificially organized, that inspires the belief in this idea of common ethnicity (p. 18).

15. 15
Ethnicity is something we all have, but in United States and many others parts of
the world; ethnicity is often applied towards minority groups to highlight dominant
groups of people on the basis of race or culture. Being a part of a dominant group
provides prestige, power, and control over those less dominant in society (Alexander
2010).
The process of race or ethnicity being applied to keeping Blacks subservient,
ignorant, and unequal all the while maintaining their labor as a valuable commodity has
played a significant role in American politics and social life. In fact the very structure and
content of the U.S. Constitution that we sacrifice so much to protect was based on the
effort to protect the racial caste system (slavery) maintaining white supremacy
(Alexander 2010).
On November 13, 1979 Ronald Reagan announced his candidacy for President of
the United States in Philadelphia, Mississippi for the second time. Why Governor Reagan
would choose to start his campaign in Mississippi, a state with such deep seeded racial
division and history, is an interesting question. What is known is that it was in this city in
June 1964, three civil rights workers were brutally murdered. The outrage and national
attention that followed the murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael
Schwerner helped to facilitate the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting
Rights Act of 1965, setting the stage for Governor Reagan’s political platform of
opposition.

16. 16
The Civil Rights Movement led to the Voting Rights Act, other federal
legislation, and federal enforcement efforts to guarantee the legal rights and equality of
opportunity for Blacks and other racial minorities. In the last half of the 1960s three
major events or factors came together to shift national attention and resources away from
the fight against poverty and Civil Rights. First, the Vietnam War (1965-1973) diverted
public attention and fiscal resources from anti-poverty programs. Second, the murder of
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. along with the slow pace of economic recovery in Black urban
areas contributed to civil disorders and riots that badly damaged the already fragile
infrastructures of inner cities all over America (Grier and Cobbs 1963). The National
Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders warned that America was headed towards “two
societies, one Black, one White separate and unequal largely maintained by white
institutions and condoned by White society” (Briggs 1968:200).
The third key factor that contributed to a crisis in the Black Community in the
inner cities was a change in the pattern of drug use and the political response to it. Three
major drug eras began and overlapped each other. The Heroin Era (1965-1973) occurred
primarily among inner city youths, especially in New York City and somewhat later in
other cities (Hunt & Chambers 1976). The Psychedelic Era (1967 – 1975) saw substantial
use of LSD primarily among Whites from middle-class backgrounds; inner city youth
largely avoided psychedelic drugs (Johnson 1973). The Marijuana Era (1965 – 1979)
began when college students in New York City and California began using the drug. The
number of users increased steadily through the 1960s and 1970s (Johnson 1973). Prior to
this alcohol use was common, marijuana, heroin, and cocaine use was rare and the sale
and distribution of illegal drugs was virtually unknown.

17. 17
Reagan and Civil Rights
Governor Ronald Reagan opposed the Civil Rights Movement and the voting
rights and fair housing laws that came as a result; he condemned busing for school
integration, and he opposed affirmative action (Williams 2004). During his campaign for
President he threatened to veto an extension of the Voting Rights Act, which appealed to
southern whites. As a result they became a large part of his political constituency
(Williams 2004).
Reagan’s political and social positions during the election were part of his
southern strategy to appeal to southern whites that felt that they were now under siege by
the federal government and losing their place to Blacks. In 1980, after his landslide
election win over President Jimmy Carter, President Ronald Reagan began to effectively
strip away all of the gains made in the Black Community as a result of the Civil Rights
movement (Williams 2004). President Reagan’s cuts in government spending hit the most
vulnerable segment of the Black Community very hard even though Black Americans
were not in direct competition with white Americans for jobs or economic status
(Alexander 2010). The recessions of the 1970s and early 1980s brought furious
opposition among white Americans to what they considered to be race-biased
government policies, and the Reagan administration did a masterful job of exploiting and
promoting his campaign promises to create a wave of fear of Blacks amongst his
Republican constituents, especially in the South (Alexander 2010).

18. 18
Reagan and the War on Drugs
In 1982, President Ronald Reagan, along with his Vice President, former head of
the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) George Bush, furthered his domestic agenda by
declaring a continuation of policies of former President Richard Nixon (who was the first
to use the term “War on Drugs”) by communicating to the nation that illicit drug use
would be considered a threat to U.S. national security (Reagan 1982). While this was a
bipartisan effort with both Democrats and Republicans supporting the policy it was
President Reagan that lit the fire sweeping the entire country up in the hysteria that our
country was being overrun with the enemy already identified as located in the urban
areas of the Black Community (Schaffer 2004).
In describing Reagan’s War on Drugs Bill Piper, director of national affairs for
the Drug Policy Alliance said that: "Drug policy was one of the few areas where Reagan
strayed from his conservative philosophy by expanding the power of the government and
undermining the Constitution. There is no better example than the War on Drugs, with its
increased overdoses, broken families and effect on the Constitution” (Schaffer 2004:1).
According to Sanho Tree, drug policy analyst for the Institute for Policy Studies:
"Reagan preached 'Just Say No' and sought tougher criminal penalties while at the
same time his administration worked hand in hand with some of the most
notorious drug traffickers in the world” (Schaffer 2004:1).

19. 19
By the time I returned home to Florida in 1984, in the middle of Reagan's second
term, cocaine had flooded the streets of South Florida. Crack cocaine appeared and, along
with it, hysteria and violence unseen before perpetuated by a willing media portraying
images and news of battlegrounds in the inner city. There was only one problem—the
drugs were not contained in the inner city they are now reaching the suburban areas.
It was different when the cocaine users were poor and Black instead of wealthy
and white. Now something had to be done. In summarizing President Ronald Reagan’s
War on Drugs, Eric Sterling, counsel to the House Judiciary Committee, said:
“When Reagan came into office, marijuana was cheap and plentiful and cocaine was
scarce and expensive. When Reagan left office, pot was expensive and hard to find and
cocaine was cheap and plentiful” (Schaffer 2004:1).

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CHAPTER II
THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES: THE EFFECT OF THE WAR ON
DRUGS ON THE LIFE CHANCES OF BLACK YOUTH
This chapter examines the effect of Reagan’s War on Drugs using the lens of
sociologist Max Weber’s concept of “life chances.” First, I discuss the theories of Max
Weber and the concept of life chances. Then, I examine the three key pieces of criminal
justice legislation that have impacted the life chances of Black youth: the Rockefeller
Drug Laws of New York State, California’s Three Strikes and You’re Out Laws, and
lastly President Bill Clinton’s Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994.
I point out in each case the racial disparities created by these policies and some of the
consequences for the Black Community.
MAX WEBER AND THE CONCEPT OF LIFE CHANCES
There have also been many theories and explanations put forward to explain how
social class is determined and its effect on the life’s chances of people in certain
categories. According to Bilton et al. (1996), Max Weber argued that:
“Social inequality needed to be understood in terms of a number of distinct
categories which are not reducible merely to economic property relations: the ownership
of land, factories and so on is accepted as an important determinant of social position but
is only one factor shaping social stratification” (p. 144). What Weber is saying here is
that individuals’ level of education and accumulated skills determine their market value,
and as a result these individuals have access to a variety of life chances and opportunities
to further their lives.

21. 21
Weber used the term “status groups.” He defined class as an “unequal distribution
of economic rewards: whereas a status group is an “unequal distribution of social honor”
(Giddens 1991:212). Haralambos and Holborn (2002) describe a status group as a “group
made up of individuals who are awarded a similar amount of social honor and therefore
share the same status stratification” (p. 37).
According to Weber, social groups and classes are in the sphere of power and are
connected to the distribution of power. Given that there are various ways that power can
be exercised, it is not possible to reduce the organization of all these groups to a single
classification or factor such as ownership or non-ownership of the means of production
like Karl Marx implies (Gerth and Mills 1946).
Taking his ideas on social stratification further, Weber spoke more on life chances
in his essay “Class, Status, and Party” (Gerth and Mills 1946). In this essay, first written
more than 100 years ago, Weber argued that depending on race, ethnicity, gender, socio-
economic status and where a person lives, his or her life chances could vary
tremendously. Weber argued that people’s life chances were guided by not only their
economic position, but by other factors, such as race, ethnicity, gender, social class,
social status, and political affiliation (Fitzpatrick and La Gory 2000). Weber’s basic
premise was that each individual had opportunities to improve the quality of his or her
own life and that given certain factors, either positive or negative, an individual’s life will
turn out a certain way.

22. 22
The opportunities Weber referred to involved the extent to which one has access
to resources, both tangible (such as food, clothing and shelter) and intangible (such as
education, job, and health care) (Kendall 2009). According to Weber, different life
chances are all connected; education can affect the type of employment that a person
gains, which can effect where they live, the type of housing they can get, and the type of
job they can acquire. These different life chances can all affect quality of life and income
and will have a bearing on how much choice an individual has.
Max Weber’s theories are seen as an expansion of the ideas of Karl Marx.
Whereas Marx focused primarily on class/social status and correlated life chances with
the attainment of material wealth, Weber focused in addition on factors such as social
mobility, social equality, and, more important for the purpose of this research question,
race and ethnicity. Urban Black youth or the Black social classes, for example, have in
common a specific component in their life chances: they are in a similar situation, which
would then imply a similar outcome to their actions (Weber 1987).
In the social science field there has been deal of debate over the influence of
structure and agency in shaping human behavior (Barker 2005). Structure is defined as
“the recurrent patterned arrangements that influence or limit the choices and
opportunities afforded to the individual. Agency is defined as the capacity of individuals
to act independently and make their own free choices” (Barker 2005: 448).

23. 23
To Max Weber life chances are based on structural factors, such as where one
is placed in the class structure and one’s educational status, ethnicity, and political
power (most of which the individual has no control over). It is these factors that are of
particular importance to the research question of how have the life chances of Black
youth in America been affected by President Ronald Reagan’s War on Drugs policy.
KEY CRIMINAL JUSTICE LEGISLATION IN THE WAR ON DRUGS
If our life chances are impacted by structure as defined by Weber, the passing of
three controversial pieces of criminal justice legislation, the Rockefeller Drug Laws,
California’s Three Strikes and You’re out Laws and the Violent Crime Control and Law
Enforcement Act of 1994 are critical to our understanding of the life chances of members
of the Black Community. These three bills bear discussing because they have severely
impacted the opportunities afforded to Black youth as a result of their impact upon the
Black Community.
The Rockefeller Drug Laws
The Rockefeller Drug Laws are the legal statutes that deal with the sale and
possession of narcotic drugs in the state of New York. Since the Rockefeller Drug Laws
were passed in 1973 under then Governor Nelson Rockefeller, New York State has had
the harshest sentencing for low level, non-violent drug offenders of any other state in the
nation. Under the Rockefeller drug laws, offenders convicted of drug offenses face the
same penalties as those convicted of murder and harsher penalties than those convicted of
rape (Sullum 1993).

24. 24
The penalty for selling two ounces or more of heroin, morphine, "raw or prepared
opium," or cocaine was made the same as that for second-degree murder: a minimum of
15 years to life in prison and a maximum of 25 years to life in prison (NORML 2013).
This punishment is intended to deter drug users and dealers from continued involvement
in drugs.
Consequences of the Rockefeller Drug Laws
Studies have shown that the majority of the people who use and sell drugs in New
York State and across the country are white (Duane 2007). The irony here is that when
promoting the same sentences his legislation promoted for all drug pushers, both big and
small, Governor Rockefeller and other political officials familiar with the landscape knew
that small time “street pushers,” the poor habitual users who were often African
American and Latino, would be disproportionately affected (Kohler-Hausmann 2010).
Using race alone to explain why Blacks and Hispanics are disproportionately
targeted compared to whites for arrest would be highly speculative. However, while
studies have shown that racial bias exists in the criminal justice system, the issue is much
larger. Disparity results more from both ethnic groups being economically and socially
marginalized to the point where they lack the political power to fight the criminal justice
system. Perry (2007), testifying on behalf of the New York Civil Liberties Union, stated
that: “The causes of these disparities, including selective arrest and prosecution,
inadequate legal representation, and the absence of judicial discretion in the sentencing
process cannot be evaluated without analyzing the ways in which race enters into law
enforcement and judicial procedures” (Perry 2007:1).

25. 25
Sociologist Michael Tonry (1995), in explaining why Blacks and Hispanics made
easy prey during the War on Drugs, said: “For a variety of reasons it is easier to make
arrests in socially disorganized neighborhoods, as contrasted with urban blue-collar and
urban or suburban white-collar neighborhoods” (Tonry 1995:378). This leads to a tactical
strategic focus on disadvantaged minority neighborhoods all over the country resulting in
large disparities of arrests and prosecutions in communities poorly equipped to fight
back.
Since the 1980s and the start of the War on Drugs in New York State, there were
886 persons incarcerated for drug offenses in 1980. Of these individuals, 32 percent were
Caucasian; 38 percent were African American; and 29 percent were Latino. In 1992, the
year in which the state reported the highest number of commitments for drug offenses, 5
percent of those incarcerated were Caucasian; 50 percent were African American; and 44
percent were Latino. The demographics of the inmate population serving time for drug
offenses in 2000 had changed little from the data reported in 1992. Of the 8,227 new
commitments for drug offenses in 2000, 6 percent were Caucasian; 53 percent were
African American; and 40 percent were Latino (Perry 2007:1).
In a relatively recent government study, a total of 1.8 million adults in New York
about 13 percent of the total adult population reported using illegal drugs in the preceding
year. Of those reported users of illicit drugs, 1.3 million or 72 percent were white. Yet in
2012 these gross disparities in drug arrests in New York State still persist. Today more
than 90 percent of people incarcerated for drug offenses are African American or Latino
(Perry 2007).

26. 26
Criminologist Alfred Blumstein, the nation’s leading expert on racial disparities
in criminal sentencing practices, has concluded that with respect to drug offenses, the
much higher arrest and conviction rates for Blacks are not related to higher levels of
criminal offending, but can only be explained by other factors such as racial bias
(Blumstein 1993).
This racial bias is remarkably evident in New York City’s arrest statistics. Whites
use illegal drugs at least as often as Blacks, but in 1997, whites constituted 5.3 percent of
the total population of drug felons currently in prison in New York; blacks and Latinos
constituted 94.2 percent (Human Rights Watch 1997). Among whites committed to
prison in 1994, 16% were convicted of a drug offense. Among blacks 45% were
committed for a drug offense, and among Latinos 59% were committed for a drug
offense (Department of Corrections 1994).
As of 1996, Blacks and Latinos made up 23% of the state's general population,
but over 85% of the people indicted for drug felonies and 85% of its overall prison
population. Fifty-four percent of those arrested were Black and 30 percent were Latino;
only 14 percent of the arrestees were white (Human Rights Watch 1997).
Going back to Max Weber’s theory of life chances, and how positively or
negatively the lack of opportunities can hinder an individual’s actions, take into
consideration the unequal access to legal resources. Most offenders charged with drug
crimes are poor and must rely upon the state’s public defense to represent them in court
(Duane 2007). Currently this system is in a state of crisis, according to a recent report by
the Commission on the Future of Indigent Defense Services.

27. 27
The Commission’s report concludes that:
Whereas minorities comprise a disproportionate share of indigent defendants and
inmates in parts of New York State, minorities disproportionately suffer the
consequences of an indigent defense system in crisis, including inadequate
resources, sub-standard client contact, unfair prosecutorial policies, and collateral
consequences of convictions (Duane 2007:1).
According to Duane (2007), with the enactment of the Rockefeller Drug Laws the
state of New York has chosen to subvert judicial fairness and to subvert the constitutional
right to a fair trial, to a zealous defense and, if found guilty, to a sentence that is
commensurate to the wrong committed. This subversion of the judicial process, argued
Duane, “is a consequence of the harsh mandatory sentencing scheme that relegates the
judge to the role of bystander in the courtroom” (Duane 2007:1).
Over the past 25 years, hundreds of thousands of poor, minority New Yorkers
have been cycled in and out of the prison system. While Blacks and Hispanics represent
only two-thirds of the New York State population, over 94% of the inmates are
minorities, and more than 70% come from a few inner-city communities of New York
City (Drucker 2002). According to Perry (2007), New York’s drug sentencing guidelines
have damaged the state’s most vulnerable communities and damaged the social and
economic networks that are essential to maintain community well being.

28. 28
The Justice Mapping Center in coordination with the New York Civil Liberties
Union analyzed prison admissions for drug offenses and concluded that in parts of New
York State urban minorities “disproportionately suffer the consequences of an indigent
defense system in crisis, including inadequate resources, sub-standard client contact,
unfair prosecutorial policies, and collateral consequences of convictions” (Perry 2007:6)
This has resulted in extremely high unemployment rates, which in turn has led to
diminished opportunities for economic and life success for current prisoners and those
who have been previously incarcerated (Perry 2007).
In New York, up to 60 percent of ex-offenders are unemployed one year after
release. For an incarcerated Black man, wages earned after release from prison are 10
percent less than wages earned before incarceration (Duane 2007). According to Loury
(2007), the ramifications of Black males serving time for a drug offense are direr: While
locked up, these felons are stigmatized – they are regarded as fit subjects for shaming.
Their links to family are disrupted; their opportunities for work are diminished. They
suffer civic ex-communication. Our zeal for social discipline consigns these men to a
permanent nether caste. And yet, since these men – whatever their shortcomings – have
emotional and sexual and family needs, including the need to be fathers and husbands, we
are creating a situation where the children of this nether caste are likely to join a new
generation of untouchables. This cycle will continue so long as incarceration is viewed as
the primary path to social hygiene (p. 6).

29. 29
Since the Rockefeller Drug laws were first passed, public support has succeeded
in gaining some small victories, and the laws were reformed under New York Governor
George Pataki in 2004. However, three overlapping policy decisions: the concentration
of drug law enforcement in inner city areas, harsher sentencing policies (particularly for
crack cocaine), and the drug war’s emphasis on law enforcement at the expense of
prevention and treatment continue to have a dramatic impact on African American
communities (Mauer and King 2007).
California’s Three Strikes and You’re out Law
California’s Three Strikes and You’re Out mandatory minimum sentencing laws
are quite different than New York State’s Rockefeller Laws. Passed in response to the
public outcry that followed the murders of 18-year-old Kimberly Reynolds and 12-year-
old Polly Klaas by men with criminal records, this law was intended to stop violent
recidivist offenders (Skelton 1993). Signed into law by Governor Pete Wilson, March 7,
1994, California statute AB 971 mandates that state courts impose 25 years to life
sentences on individuals convicted of three or more serious criminal offenses.
The Three Strikes law significantly increases the prison sentences of convicted
felons who have been previously convicted of a violent or serious felony and limits the
ability of these offenders to receive a punishment other than a prison sentence (Career
Criminal Punishment Act 1994).

30. 30
Violent offenses include murder, robbery of a residence in which a deadly or
dangerous weapon is used, rape and other sex offenses; serious offenses include the same
offenses defined as violent offenses, but also include other crimes such as burglary of a
residence and assault with intent to commit a robbery or rape. In 2000 and again in 2006
the law was amended to add to the list of offenses that qualify as a “strike” (Career
Criminal Punishment Act 1994).
Consequences of the California Three Strikes and You’re Out Law
New data released by the Justice Policy Institute reveal that California's Three
Strikes law disproportionately locks up African Americans compared to Whites.
According to the Justice Policy Institute, African Americans are given life sentences
under the Three Strikes and You’re Out laws at nearly 13 times the rate of Whites.
Currently African Americans are 6.5 percent of California's state population, but make up
nearly 30 percent of the prison population and 44.7 percent of those sentenced to life
under the Three Strikes law compared to Whites, who are 47.1 percent of the state
population, but only 29 percent of the prison population, and 25.4 percent of third strikers
(Ehlers 2004).
When comparing arrest and incarceration rates for African Americans and
Whites in the state of California as a whole, African Americans are arrested at 4.4
times the rate of Whites, imprisoned at 7.5 times the rate of Whites and sentenced
for life at nearly 13 times the rate of Whites (Ehlers 2004).

31. 31
In the state of California, African Americans are penalized at every stage of the
criminal justice system at rates disproportionate to the general population. According to
Vincent Schiraldi, of the Justice Policy Institute, “Three Strikes is systematically
funneling African American defendants into prison for longer sentences; mostly for non-
violent crimes and that the racial disparities for African Americans were particularly
harsh by criminological standards. Rarely does one see any law imposed so
disproportionately against one racial group” (Ehlers 2004).
Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994
In 1994 amid strong public concern for violent crime as the War on Drugs
continued to escalate, President Bill Clinton signed into law the Violent Crime Control
and Law Enforcement Act. This bipartisan act of Congress was six years in the making
and is the largest crime bill ever passed in this country. When President Clinton signed
the bill, he called it the "toughest and smartest crime bill in our history” (Clinton
1994:567).
In the Black Community, the bill came under intense criticism because it failed to
address racial issues and the addition of the three-strikes law. For example in 1994,
according to data from the United States Sentencing Commission (2000), despite the fact
that about two-thirds of crack cocaine users were White or Hispanic, 84.5% of defendants
convicted of crack possession in federal court were African American, 10.3% White, and
5.2% Hispanic. Trafficking offenders were 4.1% White, 88.3% Black, and 7.1%
Hispanic. By contrast, powder cocaine offenders convicted of simple possession of
cocaine powder were 58% White, 26.7% Black, and 15% Hispanic.

32. 32
The powder trafficking offenders were 32% White, 27.4% Black, and 39.3%
Hispanic. However, those offenders convicted for trafficking powered cocaine were
given less jail time. This bill authorized a total of $30.2 billion for law enforcement and
crime prevention programs under the Violent Crime Reduction Trust Fund. It provided
for 100,000 new police officers, $9.7 billion in funding for prisons and $6.1 billion in
funding for prevention programs that were designed with significant input from
experienced police officers (McCollum 1995).
The Act also significantly expanded the government's ability to deal with
problems caused by criminal aliens. The Crime Bill provides $2.6 billion in additional
funding for the FBI, DEA, INS, United States Attorneys, and other Justice Department
components, as well as the Federal courts and the Treasury Department (McCollum
1995). This Crime bill is very extensive, but some of the most significant provisions of
the bill as it relates to the current research are summarized below (McCollum 1995):
Death Penalty - Expands the Federal death penalty to cover about 60 offenses, including
terrorist homicides, murder of a Federal law enforcement officer, large-scale drug
trafficking, drive-by-shootings resulting in death and carjacking resulting in death.
Domestic Abusers and Firearms - Prohibits firearms sales to and possession by persons
subject to family violence restraining orders.
Gang Crimes – Provides new and stiffer penalties for violent and drug trafficking crimes
committed by gang members.
Juveniles - Authorizes adult prosecution of those 13 and older charged with certain
serious violent crimes. Prohibits the sale or transfer of a firearm or possession of certain
firearms by juveniles.

33. 33
Triples the maximum penalties for using children to distribute drugs in or near a
protected zone, i.e., schools, playgrounds, video arcades and youth centers.
Three Strikes - Requires mandatory life imprisonment without possibility of parole for
Federal offenders with three or more convictions for serious violent felonies or drug
trafficking crimes.
Other – Creates new crimes or enhances penalties for: drive-by-shootings, use of semi-
automatic weapons, sex offenses, crimes against the elderly, interstate firearms
trafficking, firearms theft and smuggling, arson, hate crimes and interstate domestic
violence.
The bill also established new grant programs and provided funding authorization
for additional correctional facilities, the expansion of alternative sanctions for non-violent
young offenders, and the costs incurred by states incarcerating criminal aliens
(McCollum 1995).
Consequences of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994
The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (1994) managed to put
thousands of new police officers into our communities. Prisoners were given longer
mandatory prison sentences, and victims were given a greater voice in the criminal justice
process and women and children were given more protection from violence and abuse in
their homes and communities. Because of mandatory minimum sentences built into the
call, judges can no longer reduce the term according to their discretion or any mitigating
circumstances.

34. 34
Judges are restricted from imposing alternative to incarceration sentences.
Prosecutors are now empowered to decide what charges to file against defendants.
Finally, politicians who support the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act
appear to be tough on crime (Feldman, Schiraldi, and Ziedenberg 2001).
The Black Community has been disproportionately affected and targeted during
the enforcement of this legislation, and as a result federal prisons are filled with
nonviolent offenders, many of whom could be punished more cheaply and more
effectively in community sanctions (Feldman, Schiraldi, and Ziedenberg 2001).
As a part of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, the
U.S. Sentencing Commission (2000) was directed to study the effects of this law. In
1995, a year after the Violent Control Act was passed the US Sentencing Commission
was directed to go back and re-examine equalizing the quantity of crack and powder
cocaine that would trigger a mandatory sentence for offenders. The commission came
back with a recommendation that the sentencing guidelines in the Violent Control Act
should be equalized. Congress rejected their findings, which was the first time a
recommendation from the US Sentencing Commission was not followed. President
Clinton didn't fight for it he just signed off on what Congress said. The law remained as it
was written and passed in 1994 (Feldman, Schiraldi, and Ziedenberg 2001).
The Violent Control Act took specific aim at the large number of individuals
convicted and incarcerated for drug offenses, specifically African Americans and
Hispanics, not by name but through its implementation withdrawing services that could
have helped prevent recidivism. One of the first things this legislation did was eliminate
Pell Education Grants and other educational resources for state and federal prisoners.

35. 35
Prior to 1994, Pell Grants for job training or other educational programs served as the
primary method for funding inmates’ education (Blumenson and Nilsen 2002).
In 1998, Congress denied federal grants, federally subsidized loans, and work-
study funds to college students who had convictions for any drug offense, regardless of
whether it was a felony or a misdemeanor. “The legislation stripped this resource from
certain students and restricts federal funds to those students Congress deemed to be more
deserving” (Blumenson and Nilsen 2002:68).
The legislation does not extend the prohibition to individuals who may have been
convicted of serious felonies such as rape, robbery, or murder. Instead, the legislation
prevents those individuals without financial resources, who happen to have been
convicted of any type of drug offense, from acquiring the tools necessary to reintegrate
fully as working, productive members of society (Blumenson and Nilsen 2002).
The population that was entering prison in the 1990s experienced greater physical
and mental health problems. At a time when the offender population was experiencing
greater need for assistance and intervention to enable individuals to return to society in
better position than when they were incarcerated, this bill drastically reduced the
assistance provided to inmates (Travis 2000). Without access to education, job training,
or substance abuse treatment, ex-prisoners attempting reentry must rely upon parole
agents, who, because of the demands on the parole system, who are unable to address
parolees’ needs adequately (Travis 2001).

36. 36
Furthermore, the communities to which ex-offenders return typically do not have
a wealth of programs that might serve their needs. As a result, these ex-offenders often
are unable to locate programs that can address their problems. Because of these
competing demands, most parolees simply find themselves unable to lead law-abiding
lives. The only option left for many of these inmates is re-offending and facing re-arrest
(Petersilia 2000).
Overall Consequences of These Three Crime Bills
What all three of these crime bills have in common is the detrimental affect they
have on the life chances of Black youth and the Black Community. Their families are
torn apart and their communities have socially and economically disintegrated.
Considering the large populations for two of the three largest states, these disparities are
extremely troubling. In New York State, for example, there are an estimated 11,000
incarcerated drug offenders, including 1,000 women, who are parents of young
children. In 2012, close to 25,000 children have parents in prison convicted of non-
violent drug charges (Duane 2007).
As a consequence of losing a parent to prison, these children and their extended
families experience psychological trauma, financial deprivation and physical dislocation.
The vast majority of incarcerated drug offenders come from poor, inner-city
neighborhoods. The constant removal and return of prisoners the “churning effect” make
neighborhoods less safe (Human Rights Watch 2002:1). Recent research shows that the
“concentration of incarceration” leads to the further destabilization of our most
vulnerable neighborhoods.

37. 37
According to Loury (2007):
“Three mechanisms contribute to and reinforce incarceration in neighborhoods:
the declining economic fortunes of former inmates and the effects on
neighborhoods where they tend to reside, resource and relationship strains on
families of prisoners that weaken the family’s ability to supervise children, and
voter disfranchisement that weakens the political economy of neighborhoods
because of the loss of political representation (p. 5).
Most incarcerated drug offenders come from inner-city communities of color
(Perry 2007). In the last legislative redistricting for New York State, these inner-city
communities lost 45,000 residents to upstate, mostly white districts (Perry 2007).
In addition, according to Perry (2007), because of the New York and California’s
felon disfranchisement laws, tens of thousands of Black prisoners and parolees cannot
vote and lose the ability to have an impact politically in their own communities.
According to Perry:
Studies have shown that intact families, churches, workplaces, social clubs,
organized youth groups, and civic associations have a greater positive impact on public
safety than the police do. All of those institutions are weakened when such large
disproportionate numbers of urban residents are either incarcerated or returning from
prison” (p. 1).

38. 38
If the public knew how influential these laws are and how they have created
massive change in the Black Community throughout the nation, then there would be more
urgency to revoke these draconian laws, to make right our nation’s varying drug laws, to
create one, cohesive protocol for all states and, most important, to create a system that
does not continue to differentially and negatively impact the life chances of members of
the Black Community.
CHAPTER III
A CALL TO ACTION: A 21ST
CENTURY MANIFESTO FOR
BLACK YOUTH
INTRODUCTION
In the year 2013, the Black Community is at a crossroads. In which direction does
it turn? Does it turn towards utter collapse, or does it turn towards reclaiming and re-
envisioning and activating an empowered future and purpose? The Black Community’s
most valuable commodity, its Black youth, is suffering. After enduring four hundred
years of slavery and the burden of systematic racism, mass incarceration as a result of the
policies of the War on Drugs has devastated the health of the Black Community and
severely affected the life chances of Black youth. Black young people are suffering from
fractured families; fractured communities; lack of role models, identity, and motivation;
and a loss of hope. Millions of Black youth of this generation see no future in
contemporary society outside of what they can create for themselves. Hope and dreams
have now been stripped away replaced with apathy and cynicism. As a result, what is left
is the feeling of neglect and of being expendable.

39. 39
This is a call to action for youth around the country who want to advocate for
social change and equality But this manifesto is being specifically directed at America’s
Black youth--youth who are lost and are wandering society’s wilderness all alone,
shepherding themselves; youth who have been lied to, exploited, and marginalized for so
long that they are now easily led in the wrong direction and find it difficult to imagine
that there is another direction.
This 21st
Century Manifesto recognizes that the Black youth is the Black
Community’s link to the future and that they must be protected, nurtured, respected,
loved, and educated if we are to change the life course of the Black Community. Most
important, they must be empowered to take charge of a positive destiny for themselves
and their community.
In the preceding chapter, I outlined the legacy of Reagan’s War on Drugs,
focusing on its impact of mass incarceration on the Black Community and the life
chances of Black youth. In this chapter, I briefly review how three institutional
structures of oppression—slavery, Jim Crow segregation, and mass incarceration have
adversely impacted the life chances of Black youth. I then review the historical social
movements that resulted in the end of slavery and Jim Crow segregation. Finally, I
outline the resources that could be mobilized in a New Abolition Movement to end mass
incarceration and its harmful consequences for Black youth in the United States today.

40. 40
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.
Edmund Burke
Slavery
The United States was founded and flourished on the kidnapping and enslavement
of millions of African slaves. Between 9.4 and 12 million Africans were kidnapped, sold,
and sent to the Americas for the purpose of slave labor (Meltzer 1993). The institution of
slavery is embedded into the very fabric of American society, and it is not a stretch to
believe that the United States would not exist as it does today without slavery as its
backbone.
Slavery created a sub-conscious inferiority complex within the Black Community,
which can be in part attributed to forced disconnection from our African heritage. Our
history and accomplishments were replaced with a reinforced and repetitive doctrine of
black inferiority. “These systems of domination, imperialism, colonialism and racism had
the effect of actively coercing black Americans to internalize these negative perceptions
of being Black” (Hooks 1992:172). Through harsh treatment and violent reprisals slave
owners reinforced these negative perceptions. For example, learning to read or write was
punishable in some instances with maiming or death (Davis 2006)
According to Hopson and Hopson (1990) negative identities are “usually learned
and internalized in childhood, and passed from generation to generation” (p. 83). Patricia
Hill Collins in her book From Black Power to Hip Hop said, “unlike other immigrant
groups that typically arrived in the United States with their ethnic cultures intact, as a
result of slavery Black Americans faced the unique challenge of having to construct a
new group identity or African American ethnicity under the confines of what white

41. 41
society would allow” (Collins 2006:100). So, the values and structures of the dominant
society play a large role shaping the identity of the oppressed minority and just how
members of the minority construct messages about their value and their self-worth.
Slavery didn’t just impact Black self-identity; it also affected the Black family
structure because of the separation of mother/father and child or husband and wife or by
destroying African family bloodlines. Black Americans have no genealogical map from
which to draw a family history or bloodline, no accurate records were kept, and no way to
effectively trace one’s roots. Without these records, there is no way of knowing who our
true relatives are here in this country or Africa (Patterson 1998).
This has a tremendous impact because those slaves brought to America were
mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, aunts, uncles, grandfathers, grandmothers, and cousins
who were taken from their families during slavery without documentation to track where
they were taken or by who.
According to Du Bois (1908) in The Negro American Family:
“Black male slaves were stripped of any form of pride and or self-respect, by
being humiliated in front of their families for any attempt at seeking any
resemblance of justice or escape. Black slave women were often taken from their
husbands and raped at the slave owner’s discretion, which further diminished the
male's sense of self-worth as well as the women's” (p. 47).
Du Bois noted that slavery had a crippling effect on the slave father, who lacked
the authority to govern or protect his own family. A slave’s life would entail his "wife
being made his master's concubine, his daughter raped, his son whipped, or he himself
sold away without being able to protest or lift a preventing finger" (p. 49). Women’s

42. 42
positions as mothers were undermined by slavery, as she was "often the concubine of the
master or his sons" and could be separated from her family at any time by the "master's
command or by his death or debts"(Du Bois 1908: p. 49).
This was a very effective psychological tool because it deprived slaves the
opportunity to establish monogamous and stable familial relationships. Even slaves who
were married could be forced into relationships with other slaves at the whim of their
slave owner. This methodology developed a mindset within black male slaves that
familial relationships were not important and had no value that created instability within
slave families. (DuBois 1908).
Slavery served to create hatred, dissention, a sense of inferiority, and
inadequacy between stronger and weaker male slaves. Slave also affected the self-esteem
and emotional state of the female slaves forced into relationships with other slaves and
their slave owner.
“The degradation, dehumanization, and racism extracted upon the racial identity,
self-esteem, and self-image of black slaves powerfully illuminates the lingering, complex
dualities, and cultural mis-orientation caused by slavery upon black Americans”
(Genovese 1972:564).
Leary (2005) tackled the issue of the psychological effects of slavery by
developing she described as a multigenerational maladaptive behavior theory, Post-
Traumatic Slave Syndrome (PTSS). She argued that centuries of slavery in the United
States, followed by systemic and structural racism and oppression, have resulted in
multigenerational maladaptive behaviors, which initially originated as survival strategies.
The syndrome continues today because children whose parents suffer from PTSS will

43. 43
often be indoctrinated into the same behaviors, long after the behaviors have lost their
contextual effectiveness (Leary 2005).
The author states that PTSS is not a disorder that can simply be treated and
remedied clinically but requires a profound social and structural change in our society
and American institutions to promote inequalities and injustice. This syndrome might
also explain the preference of many young African Americans for limiting educational
aspirations and lower ambitions in the larger American society (Leary 2005).
Jim Crow
In 1865, Southern states began to counter the Federal legislation passed as a result
of the 13th
Amendment of the U.S. Constitution that officially freed black Americans
from the institution of slavery. This created a harrowing situation for Southern whites
who felt that this new amendment officially on the books would bode well for the
children and grandchildren of former slaves, who would have no experience or memory
of slavery and be free to determine their own future (Litwick 1998). The first form of
retaliation was the passing of the Black Codes that were instituted, by Southern
Democrats after the death of President Abraham Lincoln as a means of controlling the
activities of free black slaves and determining what freed slaves could and could not do.
Blacks were denied the right to vote or permitted to possess firearms allowed
local officials to arrest and find unemployed African Americans and make them work
without pay for white employers to pay off their fines. The Black Codes also forbade
black families from renting, purchasing, or building homes except in neighborhoods
designated for them (Wilson 1965). These policies severely limited the life chances of
persons newly released from slavery, making them vulnerable to physical and economic

44. 44
exploitation by their former owners and other members of the post-Civil War power
structure. These laws were in effect for only a few years and were ruled unconstitutional
after the ratification of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which granted full
citizenship to newly freed slaves. However, in the South the Black Codes continued to be
used, severely limiting the life chances of freed blacks (Wilson 1965).
The Jim Crow laws that followed were state and local laws enacted between 1876
and 1965 (Kousser 1974). Whites implemented poll taxes, literacy tests, residency
requirements, and “understanding” clauses to prevent blacks from registering to vote and
despite the rights guaranteed them by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments; these
freed black slaves were systematically excluded from the political process and as a result
every phase of their life was dictated to them (Kousser 1974).
The United States Supreme Court’s Plessey vs. Ferguson (1896) decision had a
profound impact on the life chances of freed blacks. The issue addressed by this case was
whether laws that provided for the separation of races violated the rights of blacks as
guaranteed by the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme
Court upheld the constitutionality of the state of Louisiana’s right to enact legislation
requiring persons of different races to use “separate but equal” segregated facilities
continuing the discriminatory Jim Crow laws for another sixty-nine years (Fireside 2004).
In a society in which whites now had the political authority to dictate the social
order, they were free to use intimidation, harassment, and violence to contain and control
blacks. Freed Blacks who showed positive individual attributes like confidence,
intelligence, and achievement in individual or business endeavors, Black families who
achieved even modest economic success, Black men and women who attempted to vote,

45. 45
or those who failed to act in a servile manner in the presence of whites were doing so at
risks to their lives (Raber 2003).
The Jim Crow era lasted for almost a century until the successes of the Civil
Rights Movement of the mid-twentieth century, largely because the federal government
and the majority of non-Black Americans ignored or condoned this practice and the
violence that came with it. The economic poverty of the Black Community and poor
education opportunities of black children in Jim Crow schools severely hindered their life
chances. Poorly trained teachers, an academic curriculum that did not account for the
cultural heritage of Black youth, and an emphasis on physical discipline had a
tremendous psychological impact on Black youth. Many of these youth were coming
from families who were basically functionally illiterate and could not support their
children’s academic endeavors or struggles (Irons 2002).
Those who could change their circumstances did so. Six million Blacks migrated
North during the Great Migration 1910 – 1950 to escape the Jim Crow laws for better
economic opportunities. These were younger, better educated Black Americans. However,
ten million Black Americans who were not able to move north were left behind and
continued to suffer under the racial discriminatory laws of the South (Irons 2002).
Just like the institution of slavery, the Jim Crow Laws forced Black Americans
into passive and sometimes cooperative submission. Black Americans have been
prohibited from receiving equal access to the political process, education, employment
and economic opportunities. This has resulted in a struggle for many Blacks to build
stable familial relationships and provide financially for themselves or their families. This

46. 46
created circumstances where large numbers of Black families were without fathers and
positive male role models, leading to frustration, depression, and fractured Black families.
Mass Incarceration
As the chains of slavery were removed and the Jim Crow laws repealed or ruled
unconstitutional, white America adapted to the change using political influence at the
state and local level to circumvent federal legislation. Wanting to maintain power, the
dominant classes found ways to keep it. Slavery morphed into the Black Codes, which
morphed into the Jim Crow Laws, which then morphed into the prison industrial complex
and mass incarceration, which for the 21st
century is the new form of slavery and a new
form of Jim Crow (Alexander 2012) for quarantining and controlling black Americans.
With mass incarceration white America was able to switch its tactics into
something that was much more subtle. Now our communities are being impacted
indirectly. We are participating in the destruction of our own communities and families,
so we can now be blamed for our own demise. How else can you explain the infiltration
of crack into the inner city and not wealthier communities or that crack cocaine offenses
are charged one hundred times more than powdered cocaine offenses? The rise of crack
gave law enforcement the manufactured excuse it needed continue exploiting the Black
Community. This one factor alone accounted for the rapid increase of African Americans
in state and federal institutions as a result of the war on drugs. (MacCoun and Reuter
2001).

47. 47
Tonry (1996), in his book Malign Neglect: Race, Crime and Punishment in
America, charged that the racial disparities in the criminal justice system were not merely
happenstance, but the result of a “calculated effort foreordained to increase the
percentages of Blacks in prison” (p. 82).
Tonry, also argued that the drug war's planners were aware that the ineffective
policies they proposed to implement against the War on Drugs would adversely affect
African American males and would not work to curb illegal narcotic use (Tonry 1996).
This has resulted in what Nunn (2002) called mass incarceration. He explained,
“African Americans are incarcerated at percentages that exceed any legitimate law
enforcement interest and which negatively impact the Black Community. While African
Americans only comprise 12% of the U.S. population, they are 46% of those incarcerated
in state and federal prisons” (p. 381).
African American males compromise 6% of the nation’s population and 46% of
the nation’s prison population. Twenty-five percent of African American males age 18-30
are imprisoned for at least twenty five years, 30% are unemployed and another 22%
suffer from alcohol and other forms of drug abuse. This accounts for 77% of the African
American male population in the United States (West 2009). The absence of fathers due
to these circumstances has left many Black families economically imperiled and the
removal of mothers from homes has left many Black children in the care of extended
families or persons who are biologically unrelated to them (Hall 1997). The lack of
positive male role models, the fractured families, and the loss of earning potential,
political empowerment, and educational opportunities have severely hindered the life
chances of Black children. These forces increase the risks of Black children being

48. 48
involved in criminal activity, damaging their educational prospects and emotional and
physical health.
HISTORICAL SOCIAL MOVEMENTS FOR RESISTANCE
In this section I briefly highlight the role of the Abolitionist Movement and the
Civil Rights Movement in empowering the grassroots to overthrow slavery and Jim Crow
segregation.
The Abolitionist Movement
The abolitionists denounced slavery as a moral evil and worked with a higher
sense of moral purpose in calling for an end to slavery and the freeing of slaves. In the
North, religious abolitionist organizations played a major role in development a
consciousness for the elimination of slavery. Prominently supported by the Society of
Friends, abolitionist successfully forced the abolition of slavery using a passive and
gradual strategy. In the South, the abolitionist movement splintered into two distinct
groups. Benjamin Lundy’s abolitionist movement established a more passive and gradual
strategy more in line with what the Society of Friends used with success in the North, but
a much more aggressive and confrontive strategy was promoted by black and white
abolitionist leaders such as Frederick Douglas, William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips,
Theodore Weld, and Angelina Grimes who founded the American Anti-Slavery Society
in 1833. The Anti-Slavery Society created a large network of state and local
organizations that bombarded federal and state legislatures with petitions to end slavery,
put lecturers on the road across the country, organized, petition drives, published a wide
variety of printed materials, and ran abolitionist presidential candidates in both elections
of 1840 and 1844 (McPherson 1975).

49. 49
The work of the abolitionist movement created opportunities for freed blacks to
make some social and political progress, gaining the right to vote and winning political
office. Many very important Black institutions were founded some that continue to exist
today such as Black churches, colleges, and businesses. In the South some freed Blacks
were able to become farm and property owners, and in the West some were even able to
create independent and prosperous towns that showed that given opportunities freed
Black were able to improve their life chances and take control of their own destiny
(McPherson 1975).
The Civil Rights Movement
The Civil Rights Movement was the largest mobilization of Black Americans in
this nation’s history and had an effect on the lives of Blacks all over the world. The Civil
Rights Movement battled oppression, injustice, and racial prejudices that had weighed
down African Americans since their arrival in the country as slaves (Morris 1964).
This movement started as a movement to end segregation and racial injustice. In
addition to legal challenges such as the case of Brown vs. the Board of Education in
which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that separate educational facilities were inherently
unequal, this struggle for equality widely used the tactics of passive nonviolence
successfully used by the Society of Friends years before. In addition to the nonviolent
resistance strategies of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference under Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr., other Black leaders came to prominence. Ralph Bunche, for example,
was best known for his work in the United Nations and for becoming the first African
American to win the Nobel peace prize in 1950 for his work in resolving Arab-Israeli
disputes after World War II.

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Malcolm X was a New York City social activist who started as a vocal and
leading member of the Nation of Islam advocating Black self-sufficiency, identify, and
pro-Black separateness. His position evolved after a visit to Mecca and became
independent of the Nation of Islam and began advocating a broader, more globally
sophisticated, and inclusive platform of advancement for Black Americans in the United
States (Morris 1964)
With the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 and Malcolm X in 1965,
the Civil Rights Movement as many knew it ended. The loss of the movement’s most
important leaders and visionaries, however, did not prevent the Black Community from
achieving two very important things: a formal federal government commitment to civil
rights and key legislation undoing some of the worst aspects of legal segregation and
disenfranchisement. The dedication and sacrifices of many led to Supreme Court cases,
such as Brown v. Board of Education and the passage of legislation such as the Twenty-
Fourth Amendment which ended the practice of denying Black Americans the ability to
vote by reason of failure to pay a poll tax, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting
Rights Act of 1965. These accomplishments provided the legal framework for protecting
Blacks’ rights after hundreds of years of systematic racial discrimination (Pickney 2012).
As a result these legislative victories, Black Americans began to be admitted to
public schools, colleges, and public accommodations formerly closed to them. Blacks
Americans once again began to occupy high public office and actively participate in
many aspects of American society from which they had long been excluded by
segregation and discrimination.

51. 51
Worldwide the image of Black Americans began to change any aspects of Black
American culture and style became in vogue. The phrase "Black Is Beautiful" and “Say It
Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud” took hold in the Black Community. Assumptions of
inferiority were challenged and for the first time in American history it became illegal to
discriminate against Blacks (Morris 1964).
Younger and more culturally activist African Americans started to accept and be
proud of their physical features promoting Black unity through organizations such as The
Black Panther Party. The Black Panther Party did not adhere to the passive and gradualist
policies of the Civil Rights movement. Their political philosophy was more direct and
combined militant nationalism with Marxist philosophy. They stressed the empowerment
and self-defense of the Black Community, often through direct confrontation. The Black
Panther Party fought against poverty, criminality, police brutality, unemployment,
slavery, and oppression in the United States. Fighting for the liberation of the working
class, the Black Panther Party focused on social, political and economic equality across
regardless of color or gender (Alkebulan 2007).

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THE NEW ABOLITION REVOLUTION
There is nothing more tragic than to sleep through a revolution.
Dr. Martin Luther King 1965 Oberlin College Commencement Address)
In this final section I call for a new abolition movement. I highlight the ideas of
several scholars who are likeminded in their support for a new social movement to
change the system and break these cycles of oppression that are affecting a new
generation of Black Americans and its most vital Black youth. Finally, I state my desire
for a new social movement geared towards rallying the youth of the Black Community in
what I call The Black Youth Manifesto.
What Is To Be Done
Social movements have been a key part of every major social change in American
history. I have mentioned a few here that there have been based on political or religious
convictions that sprung from the desire to fight oppression and discrimination. The
support of White America played a large role in these movements. For instance, the
Abolition movement and the Civil Rights movement are clear examples of how the work
of a grassroots constituency of Blacks along with socially conscientious Whites was able
to create change when the vast majorities were reluctant to change. During those times
Black America needed the help of others because we were held back through lack of
resources, political power, and our single voice alone was not loud enough.

53. 53
The last major social movement for Black America stopped at the end of the Civil
Rights era. The Civil Rights Movement wasn’t there to stop the War on Drugs, crime and
drug use, human rights abuses, mass incarceration, violence, police brutality, and the
exploitation and marginality of our communities and the great disparities in educational
opportunities to our children. It’s been over forty years that my entire generation has
suffered through these times, and new generations of Black youth are the products of
what we have not done to stem this tide in our communities. That is why we need a
revolution that does not stop but comes back around in the face of oppression. There are
academic scholars who are advocating for real change and the destruction of systems that
continue to be new and advanced forms of slavery and Jim Crow.
Civil rights lawyer, advocate, and legal scholar Michelle Alexander believes that
most Americans are asleep to the deep-seated, systemic racism in America’s legal and
penal system. Alexander stated in a speech to Yale University’s All School Conference
that, “This system has decimated so many communities, destroyed so many families, and
has literally turned back the clock on racial progress in the United States” (Alexander
2013).
Alexander agrees that nothing short of a major social movement has any
hope of ending mass incarceration in America. This system is now so deeply
engrained in our social, political, and economic structure that it is not going to just
fade away. Alexander explained that even though we are focused on our own
community, dismantling this system will not work with a race-neutral approach. We
need to rally the support of other marginalized communities and work together in a
common movement for basic human rights, basic human dignity (Alexander 2012).

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Long before the War on Drugs, Ronald Reagan, the emergence of crack cocaine
in the Black community, and the mass incarceration of Black Americans, scholar Derek
A. Bell, one of the leading proponents of “critical race theory,” saw this coming. His
views on what has happened in the Black Community were that the prison industrial
complex and mass incarceration are just tools used for racial control operating under a
new name.
Bell believed that Black Americans would never be allowed to get too far ahead.
He explained in his work Who is Afraid of Critical Race Theory:
Blacks have suffered greatly as a result of discrimination undergirded and often
justified by the general belief in black inferiority. But history shows with equal
clarity, though it is less frequently acknowledged, that indications of black
success and thus possible black superiority result in racist outrage (p. 895).
Professor Bell has argued that mass incarceration, just like the institution of
slavery, the Black Codes, and the Jim Crow laws that followed would continue to exist as
long as it served the interest of the White power structure. For the White power structure,
prison is big business in this country, and for one corporation it is big business around the
world. The Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) owns most of the private prisons
in the United States and sells its stock and shares on the New York Stock Exchange
(CCA 2011).
One of its major stockholders is the Paine Webber Group. This multi-billion
dollar industry has the capacity to influence public policies to ensure laws are
implemented that preserve their capacity to influence public policy that preserves their
capacity to operate and make a profit.

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The private prison system runs parallel to the U.S. prisons and currently accounts
for nearly 10 percent of U.S. state and federal inmates, according to the Bureau of Justice
Statistics. Those numbers rise and fall in response to specific policies, and CCA along
with the GEO Group has been accused of lobbying for policies that would fill its cells
such as the increase in enforcement. The CCA’s filings with the Securities and Exchange
Commission clearly point out that their business success is tied to a status quo in criminal
justice policy. "The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by
the relaxation of enforcement efforts, leniency in conviction or parole standards and
sentencing practices or through the decriminalization of certain activities that are
currently proscribed by our criminal laws" (CCA 2010). This letter noted that “any
changes with respect to drugs and controlled substances or illegal immigration could
affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially
reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them" (CCA 2010).
Professor Michael Tonry of the University of Minnesota who specializes in
criminal law explained, “The drug war was fought largely from partisan political motives
to show that the Reagan and Bush administrations were concerned about public safety,
crime prevention, and the needs of victims. It generated wide spread public support and
unprecedented bipartisan political support, but it was a total failure” (Tonry in Nunn
2002:388).
The purpose of the War on Drugs was to make the price of the drugs more
expensive and riskier for those to sell it, thus making drugs less available. Massive arrests
and mandatory prison sentences did not make drugs harder to find. There is no evidence
that the War on Drugs lowered levels of drug use in the United States.

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Drug use was declining before the War on Drugs went into effect, so it should
take no credit for the decline. With the War on Drugs in effect it doubled arrests, police,
prosecution, court, and the prison system. 70% of federal funding was devoted to law
enforcement with the remaining 30% to be shared between treatment and education
(Tonry 1995).
Tonry suggested the drug policy was especially bad because the damage to Black
Americans would be inflicted primarily for the benefit of the great mass of, mostly
White, non-disadvantaged Americans. To change the system, he felt that there were six
steps politicians could take. First, consider the foreseeable effects of crime control policy
decisions on members of minority groups. Any policy implemented during any of the
past Presidential administrations should have seen the problems that were going to occur
when implementing their policies. Second, presumptive sentencing guidelines for
ordinary cases that set maximum penalties should be set up, in order to guard against
racial bias in sentencing. Third, we should give the utmost compassion to predecessors
and give the least amount of punishment in every case. Fourth, empower judges at
sentencing to mitigate sentences for all defendants, irrespective of race, ethnicity, or sex,
to take account of individual circumstances. Fifth, encourage programs, which are going
to treat the criminal and help them with re-entry back into their communities. We should
focus on rebuilding the person and their family. Sixth, transparency, being honest is the
key for politicians and citizens to agree on better corrections programs. If we can find
ways to keep the racial bias away from the legal system, we should do so (Tonry 1995).

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In order to create this revolution we need to take the truth to our communities. We
need to engage our Black Youth who are the unwitting victims of what is happening in
our communities. We need our churches to regain their place as community leaders and
centers of influence and network brokering. We need our community and recreation
centers, our schools, prison advocacy programs, and re-entry centers. This revolution has
to be about education, consciousness raising, and action.
That means we have to create forums for study groups to raise consciousness and
networking with other social justice organizations that are working on not only criminal
justice reform, but human rights and immigrant rights issues, educational reform, and job
creation and economic development in not just our communities, but in foreign
communities who also share in this plight. This revolution to end mass incarceration has
to be one movement--not isolated, separate campaigns, and policy agendas.
Who Needs To Do It
In order to create this youth movement we need to rebuild the relationships in the
Black Community that have served us well in previous generations. We need to
reinvigorate them with a new mission and a sense of purpose. We need to establish new
relationships with other community-based organizations. We need our business, sports,
and entertainment leaders to be spokesman. We need our schools and community centers
to be actively engaged, our Black fraternity/sorority organizations to be in action, Black
churches to be actively engaged in becoming the beacons once again of our communities.
Below is just a short list of these organizations and suggestions for how these
organizations can assist in supporting this revolution and impacting the lives of youth in
the Black Community in real way.

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Black Churches
The Black church is one of the oldest institutions in this country. Black churches
provided resources, social connections, and personnel during both the Abolition
Movement and the Civil Rights Movement and reached into a variety of communities and
social classes. The Black church is able to help provide access to Black professionals,
financial resources, and credibility for actions to end mass incarceration.
The following are just a few of the national Black church denominations that
could be mobilized to work on abolition of mass incarceration and on addressing the
individual and community deficits that mass incarceration has visited on the Black
Community. The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, Church of God in Christ,
National Baptist Convention, African Union First Colored Methodist Protestant Church
and Connection, Apostolic Faith Mission, Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, Church
of Christ (Holiness) U.S.A., Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ of the Apostolic Faith, Fire
Baptized Holiness Church of God of the Americas, Mount Sinai Holy Church of America,
National Baptist Convention of America, Inc., National Missionary Baptist Convention
of America, Pentecostal Assemblies of the World, United House of Prayer for All People,
United Pentecostal Council of the Assemblies of God, Incorporated and the Israelite
School of Universal Practical Knowledge, Progressive National Baptist Convention,
Spiritual Israel Church and Its Army.

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Black Fraternities and Sororities
These campus organizations and their alumni provide reach into communities
throughout the country and access to educated Black middle class and professionals who
can help provide resources and social and political connections for the new movement.
These are organizations that are rich with history and achievement. They all share the
same purpose, which is to better the Black Community and the lives of youth. These
organizations can help by promoting interaction through forums, meetings, and other
mediums for the exchange of information and engages in cooperative programming and
initiatives through various activities and functions. There are several local and national
fraternity and sorority organizations that are engaged in making change in the Black
Community and the lives of youth. The following is a list of these organizations. Alpha
Phi Alpha Fraternity, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Omega
Psi Phi Fraternity, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Zeta Phi Beta
Sorority, Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Iota Phi Theta Fraternity.
Community Based Organizations
These are organizations that can have a powerful and positive impact on
rebuilding the lives of youth by creating safe havens for them to move away from gangs,
criminal activity, and a traumatic past. They can also, through their networks, staff, and
volunteers, mobilize activists to engage in policy and political change necessary to end
the War on Drugs and mass incarceration. These organizations can provide the resources
in a variety of different ways to help build healthy and positive identities and productive
future and to help create a movement for policy change.

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The following is a sample list of a few of the community based youth
organizations in just one community (the Minnesota Twin Cites) that could be mobilized
to provide important support and reach for the New Abolution Movement: Kulture Klub,
Street Works Outreach, Employment Action Center, Face To Face, YouthLink, Urban
Centers Learning Lab, PPL Learning Center, Youth Thrive, Sabathani Community
Center, Avenues, The Bridge, Oak Park Neighborhood Center, Youth Opportunity Center,
Midwest Challenge, Minnesota Teen Challenge, The Link, 180 Degrees Evening
Learning Center and the Brian Coyle Community Center.
Entertainment Advocacy
Black entertainers and athletes give substantial amounts of their time, talents, and
treasures to charitable causes and tend to give most to causes that have the most impact
on their lives, with education, youth projects, health-related causes, and civic engagement
at the top of the list. They are able to do this by providing news, videos, and photos of
celebrity philanthropy, nonprofit organizations, and causes that directly correlate with the
Black Community. They have the ability to enrich the lives of others through celebrity
philanthropy, nonprofits, causes, and grants and to inform people on issues affecting the
Black Community and Black youth. The following are just a few of the national
entertainment advocacy organizations that have been working diligently to assist in
addressing these issues. Radio One, Black Entertainment Television, Carmelo Anthony
Foundation, Aspire, Keep A Child Alive, Big Kidz Foundation, Cam Newton Foundation,
The Tiger Woods Foundation, Open Society Foundation, Common Ground Foundation,
Wade’s World Foundation, The Gordon Parks Foundation, Blues Babe Foundation, MJ
Foundation, Youth 2 Leaders, TASF Foundation, Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation,

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Black America Web.Com, TJ Foundation, The Show Me Campaign, Admiral Center and
the G-Unity Foundation.
Social Media
Though nothing can replace the face-to-face interaction with others, the youth of
this generation are very technologically proficient. This revolution will not only be
televised; it will be done using all of these forms of social networking outlets. Social
media has become the new wave to talk to masses of people who are likeminded, where
information can be disseminated instantaneously. This is a very powerful tool that the
youth of today relate to and can be used from anywhere at any time. Movement
organizers use social media to inform and mobilize, as the demonstrations mobilized
through social media during the 2012 Arab Spring have demonstrated. Popular social
media entities include: Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr, Youtube,
Stumbleupon, Digg, Newsvine, Blogs, Reddit, Wordpress, Blogger, Orkut, Hi5, Google
Buzz, Yahoo Meme, Mixx, Hulu, Enips, Scribd and Slideshare.
Parental Engagement
We need parent engagement. When parents are engaged in the activities of their
sons and daughters and support their education, children tend to do better in school and
like education more. Parental engagement can help youth improve behavior, develop
better social skills, and make greater gains. Parental involvement is a valuable
community resource and is critical to the lives of youths. There are a number of national
and local parental engagement organizations that are heavily invested in changing the life
chances of Black youth and Black families and could provide valuable energy to the New
Abolition Movement. Some of these organizations are: Parent Appleseed, The National

62. 62
PTA, National Network of Partnership Schools, Minority Parent & Community
Engagement, Headstart, PACE, Coordinate Family & Community Parent Mentoring
Program, Community Engagement Scholars, Families In Schools, Learning First, Child
Outreach Program, Positive Parenting Program, The National Center for Parent, Family
& Community Engagement and Parent Academy.
Higher Education
Colleges and universities, both mainstream and Historically Black Colleges and
Universities are centers for academic and athletic achievement; there is a wealth of
untapped potential within the students pursuing undergraduate and graduate degrees.
These institutions provide a wealth of resources and an environment to rally and engage
other students. There are various social organizations within this environment, students
who have been previously involved in some form of collective action and will continue to
be involved.
Historically Black Colleges and Universities play an important role. There are 105
of them in the United States, and these institutions enroll the largest number of Black
American college students (Provasnik and Shafer 2004). Because the majority of colleges
and universities in the United States are predominantly white, Black American students
may experience a sense of social isolation at those schools, which can distract them from
their studies and limit their desire to pursue extracurricular and social activities.

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When Blacks attend a historically black institution, they do not have to worry
about the potential distraction of being a minority student and they are provided an
environment that is conducive to bringing attention to the issues of Black youth and the
Black Community. There are a number of national higher education based programs that
have been involved with working to ending the practice of mass incarceration and
addressing the individual and community needs of the Black Community.
The following is a list of just a few of the types of programs that exist on college
campuses around the nation: college student volunteer programs, mentorship programs,
diversity programs, Black student unions, corrections/criminal justice programs, and
social justice programs.
Black Advocacy Organizations
These are organizations that are dedicated and directly involved with improving
the Black Community. They are very important because they are established and long
serving organizations with vast economic and social resources that are able to influence
political, legislative and public policy arenas. The following are just a few of the national
Black advocacy organizations have been staples of the Black Community and are an
invaluable networking and mobilizing resource that have a tremendous impact and could
be mobilized to help a New Abolition Movement: NAACP, Urban League, United Negro
College Fund, Color of Change, National Newspaper Publishers Association, A Better
Chance, National Association of Colored Women’s Club, Congress of Racial Equality,
National Council For Negro Women and the Nation of Islam.