“I’d open every cell in Attica—send ‘em to Africa.”
-Nas “If I Ruled the World”
Last week Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow
Davis’ scholarship and activism shows how prisons are a multi-billion dollar industry primarily because, according to the 13th amendment, enslavement is legal in the U.S. in the form of prisons. Therefore, Davis identifies as a prison abolitionist and traces her political lineage to the abolitionist movement in antebellum U.S. Unfortunately, most Black students are totally unaware of their own abolitionist tradition.
Several notable Black abolitionists such as Henry Highland Garnet began political organizing at the African Free School in the 1830s. While a student, Garnet caused uproar in the community when he helped to found an anti-slavery organization named after one of the most militant abolitionists of the time, William Lloyd Garrison. After graduation, he was an uncompromising advocate for armed struggle to end enslavement and emigration to Africa.
Another standout Black student abolitionist, John A. Copeland, while a student at Oberlin College helped to liberate a Black man in Ohio who was captured after escaping from enslavement. He eventually dropped out of Oberlin to join John Brown in his violent attempt to overthrow the slave system. Copeland gave the ultimate sacrifice, his life.
Howard University is no stranger to Black student abolitionism. In the 1930s, Howard students joined the Southern Negro Youth Congress (SNYC). (The first Snick!) SNYC was founded by two Black communists. Although its membership included non-communists, its communist members envisioned and struggled to create a classless-stateless society without prisons.
If the current generation is to pick up the torch of abolitionism similar to Garnet, Copeland, and SNYC members, they must reject American individualism, consumerism, and celebrity culture. In a society that states our human worth is determined by material possessions and the amount of goods you consume, the notion of fighting to abolish all prisons is perceived to be futile and utopian, but the tide may just be turning.
All over the world, from Arab countries to the Africa to Latin America, as Martin Luther King stated “the cry is we want to be free.” The abolition of all prisons can only come as a result of a complete transformation of the economic system.
It appears that we are entering the beginning stages of such a movement. Here is our chance. Now is the time for us to reclaim the Black student abolitionist tradition.
Benjamin Woods M.P.S. is a PhD Candidate at Howard University. His blog FreetheLand provides political and cultural analysis of historical and contemporary events as they relate to people of African descent.
Interesting article. “The abolition of all prisons can only come as a result of a complete transformation of the economic system.
It appears that we are entering the beginning stages of such a movement. Here is our chance. Now is the time for us to reclaim the Black student abolitionist tradition.”
This is a monumental task and a mental hurdle for a lot of people. I’ve seen the stigmatization of prisoners in peoples minds and in their conversations both young and old in the community. Many of them believe prison is like the OZ series on HBO and to let such “criminals” out would endanger the whole black community (especially from what is termed as middle-class blacks and church folks). However this is balanced on the backdrop that nearly everyone you talk to has at least one, two or three if not more people in their family that are in prison for non-violent offenses. Theirs a mental roadblock to the idea of prison that permeates from outside into our community that needs to be explored. The main thing I run into as to why people are afraid of such abolitionist ideas, is because they believe regardless of their lived experience only rapist and murders go to prison or bad people in general. It’s a psychological regurgitation that needs to be fought with education as well as actual interaction with prisoners. We have break them out of their own isolationist mentality as well as deal with our own. The biggest roadblock that I talked about above is the main reason people don’t support the complete abolition of prisons, no matter how unjust the system is.
Interesting article. “The abolition of all prisons can only come as a result of a complete transformation of the economic system.
It appears that we are entering the beginning stages of such a movement. Here is our chance. Now is the time for us to reclaim the Black student abolitionist tradition.”
This is a monumental task and a mental hurdle for a lot of people. I’ve seen the stigmatization of prisoners in peoples minds and in their conversations both young and old in the community. Many of them believe prison is like the OZ series on HBO and to let such “criminals” out would endanger the whole black community (especially from what is termed as middle-class blacks and church folks). However this is balanced on the backdrop that nearly everyone you talk to has at least one, two or three if not more people in their family that are in prison for non-violent offenses. Theirs a mental roadblock to the idea of prison that permeates from outside into our community that needs to be explored. The main thing I run into as to why people are afraid of such abolitionist ideas, is because they believe regardless of their lived experience only rapist and murders go to prison or bad people in general. It’s a psychological regurgitation that needs to be fought with education as well as actual interaction with prisoners. We have break them out of their own isolationist mentality as well as deal with our own. The biggest roadblock that I talked about above is the main reason people don’t support the complete abolition of prisons, no matter how unjust the system is.
Nice article, the constant consumerism and individualism is a real challenge for our youth and adults.
You seem to have gone right off the consumerism issue. It just got lost in the narrative about prisons and/or student organizing.