ALSO IN THE NEWS:
A photo of Robert King appeared in the November 18 edition of the New York Times (read full article here) as part of the newspaper's coverage of the previous day's event at New York University entitled Should You Ever Happen to Find Yourself in SOLITARY: Wry Fancies and Stark Realities. King spoke alongside other survivors of solitary and he is cited in the NY Times as follows: "Robert Hillary King, a former Black Panther who spent 29 years in solitary at Angola State Prison in Louisiana in a tangled case that ended with his original conviction being overturned in 2001, compared the American prison system to slavery."
A photo of Robert King appeared in the November 18 edition of the New York Times (read full article here) as part of the newspaper's coverage of the previous day's event at New York University entitled Should You Ever Happen to Find Yourself in SOLITARY: Wry Fancies and Stark Realities. King spoke alongside other survivors of solitary and he is cited in the NY Times as follows: "Robert Hillary King, a former Black Panther who spent 29 years in solitary at Angola State Prison in Louisiana in a tangled case that ended with his original conviction being overturned in 2001, compared the American prison system to slavery."
Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow at Dillard University From the Dillard University website:
Michelle Alexander is a highly acclaimed civil rights lawyer, advocate, and legal scholar who currently holds a joint appointment at the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity and the Moritz College of Law at The Ohio State University. Prior to joining the Kirwan Institute, Professor Alexander was an associate professor of law at Stanford Law School, where she directed the Civil Rights Clinics.
The author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (2010), Alexander will discuss the timely topic of mass incarceration and the African-American community. Her book challenges the conventional wisdom that with the election of Barack Obama as president, our nation has "triumphed over race." Jim Crow laws were wiped off the books decades ago, but today an astounding percentage of the African-American community is warehoused in prisons or trapped in a permanent, second-class status, much like their grandparents before them who lived under an explicit system of racial control. Alexander argues that the sudden and dramatic mass incarceration of African-American men, primarily through the War on Drugs, has created a new racial under caste - a group of people defined largely by race that is subject to legalized discrimination, scorn, and social exclusion.
The old forms of discrimination - discrimination in employment, housing, education, and public benefits; denial of the right to vote; and exclusion from jury service - are suddenly legal once you're labeled a felon. She challenges the civil rights community, and all of us, to place mass incarceration at the forefront of a new movement for racial justice in America.
The state of Louisiana now has one of the largest privatized correctional facility programs in the country. Mass incarceration is a topic Dillard University has visited before. Earlier this year, from March 20-22, Dillard hosted Crime and Punishment: African-Americans in a "Post-Racial" (?) United States, a symposium designed to explore problems of crime and incarceration in the U.S. today, their outsized impact on the black community, and the dubious concept of our society as "post-racial." Criminal justice in New Orleans was also addressed throughout three days of seminars and panel discussions. Professor Alan Colon hosted the event along with professor Carroll Wiltz.
For more information on the upcoming Ortique Lecture on Law and Society, please contact the President's Office at (504) 816-4640.
Friday, Nov. 30, 7pm: Resurrection After Exoneration
From the website:
Join Resurrection After Exoneration for a night of food, drinks, and entertainment provided by our Open Mic all stars featuring special guest Troy Sawyer and hosted by Nature Boy! Your support will help us fix up our community center for events such as GED classes, community meetings, law classes, public defender training, and the hugely popular Open Mic Night!
Purchase your ticket ASAP by contacting Marya at 504 302 1940.
Advance tickets $10
Student ID $10
At the door $15
1212 St. Bernard Avenue
New Orleans, LA 70116
