The New Jim Crow & Mass Incarceration

Racial profiling, criminalization, and mass incarceration of African Americans and other people of color constitute today’s legal system for institutionalized racism, discrimination, and exclusion. Dr. Michelle Alexander, civil rights advocate, litigator, scholar and author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness exposes today’s racial caste system and how to resist it. Dr. Alexander spoke to an audience of over 600 people at Justice General Assembly 2012 in Phoenix and challenged us to learn about the oppression that’s happening through the criminal justice system to people of color in our nation and our communities, and to step up and witness. Join the movement to support prisoners and their families and to put an end to mass incarceration.

As Unitarian Universalists, we have the religious grounding, the resources, and the opportunity to make a difference in partnership with those who are most affected by institutionalized racism and ‘the new Jim Crow.’

Read the Book

Invite your congregation and members of your community to read the book together. Use the UU Study Guide for your conversations.

The New Jim Crow selected as the 2012-2013 Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) Common Read! A Common Read invites participants to read and discuss the same book in a given period of time. The UUA Bookstore is supporting this Common Read with a 10% discount on orders of 5-9 books and 20% off orders of 10 or more books. Your purchase of The New Jim Crow from the UUA Bookstore supports the work of our Association.

The New Jim Crow UUA Common Read Study Guide invites participants to read and discuss the same book in a given period of time,  The UUA New Jim Crow discussion guide (PDF) is available to help Unitarian Universalist (UU) groups reflect on the book and consider together what steps they are called to take, as people of faith, in response to Alexander’s call for awareness and action.

Watch the Video of Dr. Alexander’s Riveting Presentation at Justice GA

2012 General Assembly Workshop Video: The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration and Institutional Racism led by Michelle Alexander

• Workshop Video Clip: Overview of Thesis.
   
• Workshop Video Clip: Awakening to The New Jim Crow. 

Find Out More!

• 'We Must Awaken Our Country', message for Standing on the Side of Love's 30 Days of Love
   
• Official website for Dr. Michelle Alexander and The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
   
• Download the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference Study Guide ($10) for The New Jim Crow. The Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference represents a cross section of progressive African American faith leaders and their congregations in the United States. SDPC has partnered with Dr. Michelle Alexander and other advocates to launch a public awareness campaign—a freedom movement—to address the New Jim Crow and mass incarceration in this nation.
   
• Companion Reflection on Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference Guide by David Slavin, UUA Journey Toward Wholeness Transformation Committee Member. David holds a PhD. in modern world history from the University of Virginia and is the author of Colonial Cinema and Imperial France: White Blindspots, Male Fantasies, Settler Myths (Johns Hopkins Press). David has taught labor history and world history for several decades at several colleges, and a dozen Adult Religious Education courses for UU congregations on the interaction of race and class.

Develop UU Theological Grounding for Resisting the New Jim Crow

• Rev. Marlin Lavanhar, All Souls Unitarian Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, 'The New Jim Crow', sermon delivered on Sunday, March 25, 2012
  • Audio of Sermon
  • Video of Sermon
• Rev. Fred Small, First Parish in Cambridge Unitarian Universalist, Massachusetts, 'The New Jim Crow', sermon delivered Sunday, March 24, 2013
  • Audio of Sermon
  • Text of Sermon
• 2005 UUA Statement of Conscience: Criminal Justice and Prison Reform

Find a Partner Group in Your Community and State!

• Partners: Many faith-based and racial justice organizations are working to support prisoners and their families and to stop mass incarceration. Find one near you!