What This Country Needs Is More Unemployed

I Grew Up In The Southern United States In A City Which At That Time During The Late '40's And Early '50's Was The Most Segregated City In The Country, And In A Sense Learning How To Oppose The Status Quo Was A Question Of Survival.

The Prison Is Not The Only Institution That Has Posed Complex Challenges To The People Who Have Lived With It And Have Become So Inured To Its Presence That They Could Not Con­ceive Of Society Without It. Within The History Of The United States The System Of Slavery Immediately Comes To Mind.

We Cannot Assume That People By Virtue Of The Fact That They Are Black Are Going To Associate Themselves With Progressive Political Struggles. We Need To Divest Ourselves The Kinds Of Strategies That Assume That Black Unity Black Political Unity Is Possible.

I'm Involved In The Work Around Prison Rights In General.

Now, If We Look At The Way In Which The Labor Movement Itself Has Evolved Over The Last Couple Of Decades, We See Increasing Numbers Of Black People Who Are In The Leadership Of The Labor Movement And This Is True Today.