After years as a civil rights lawyer, I rarely find myself speechless. — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“And despite the unprecedented levels of incarceration in the African American community, the civil rights community is oddly quiet.” — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
The problem that we face as civil rights lawyers and advocates is that its extremely difficult to prove race discrimination because the… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
A slew of federal civil rights legislation protecting the newly freed slaves was passed during the relatively brief but extraordinary period of… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“Mass incarceration—not attacks on affirmative action or lax civil rights enforcement—is the most damaging manifestation of the backlash against the Civil Rights… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
The very rights that we supposedly won for African Americans in the civil rights movement no longer exist for those labeled felons.… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
We're living in a time when so many of the civil rights and social justice organizations are run by lawyers and policy… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“Civil rights protests were frequently depicted as criminal rather than political in nature, and federal courts were accused of excessive “lenience” toward… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“History reveals that the seeds of the new system of control were planted well before the end of the Civil Rights Movement.… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“As historian Gerald McKnight observes, “King was proposing nothing less than a radical transformation of the Civil Rights Movement into a populist… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“Fore more than a decade - from the mid-1950s until the late 1960s - conservatives systematically and strategically linked opposition to civil… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
Eventually [black men] are arrested, whether they've committed any serious crime or not, and branded criminals or felons for life. Upon release,… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
Felons are typically stripped of the very rights supposedly won in the civil rights movement, including the right to vote, the right… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“One in three young African American men is currently under the control of the criminal justice system—in prison, in jail, on probation,… — michelle alexander Copy Share Image
“The rhetoric of ‘law and order’ was first mobilized in the late 1950s as Southern governors and law enforcement officials attempted to… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“This book argues that mass incarceration is, metaphorically, the New Jim Crow and that all those who care about social justice should… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
I think this mythology - that we're all beyond race, of course our police officers aren't racist, of course our politicians don't… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“In his campaign for the presidency, Reagan mastered the "excision of the language of race from conservative public discourse"… For example, when… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“While the Reconstruction Era was fraught with corruption and arguably doomed by the lack of land reform, the sweeping economic and political… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“The War on Drugs proved popular among key white voters, particularly whites who remained resentful of black progress, civil rights enforcement, and… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“A new civil rights movement cannot be organized around the relics of the earlier system of control if it is to address… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“Within five years, the effects of the civil rights revolution were undeniable. Between 1964 and 1969, the percentage of African American adults… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“To great effect, Reagan echoed white frustration in race-neutral terms through implicit racial appeals. His 'color-blind' rhetoric on crime, welfare, taxes, and… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“History reveals that the seeds of the new system of control were planted well before the end of the Civil Rights Movement.… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“Far from fading away, it appears that prisons are here to stay. And despite the unprecedented levels of incarceration in the African… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“As the rules of acceptable discourse changed, however, segregationists distanced themselves from an explicitly racist agenda. they developed instead the racially sanitized… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
If you ask for good schools, you aren't likely to get them. If you ask for jobs or economic investment, you won't get that… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
The uncomfortable reality we must face is that California, like the nation as a whole, has treated generations of African Americans and Latinos as… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“Seeing race is not the problem. Refusing to care for the people we see is the problem. The fact that the meaning of race… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
Since the nations founding, African Americans repeatedly have been controlled through institutions such as slavery and Jim Crow, which appear to die but then… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“Felon disenfranchisement laws have been more effective in eliminating black voters in the age of mass incarceration than they were under Jim Crow…These figures… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“That was King’s dream—a society that is capable of seeing each of us, as we are, with love. That is a goal worth fighting… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
Activists take the risks, while advocates are professional tinkerers with the system. What's necessary is for those who are advocates to support those who… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“Civil rights protests were frequently depicted as criminal rather than political in nature, and federal courts were accused of excessive “lenience” toward lawlessness, thereby… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
We cannot 'fix' the police without a revolution of values and radical change to the basic structure of our society. — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
If we continue to tell ourselves the popular myths about racial progress or, worse yet, if we say to ourselves that the problem of… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
The mass incarceration of poor people of color, particularly black men, has emerged as a new caste system, one specifically designed to address the… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“[T]he slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun; then moved back again toward slavery. —W.E.B Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
![“Eventually [black men] are arrested, whether they've committed any serious crime or not, and branded criminals or felons for life. Upon release, they're ushered into a parallel social universe in which the civil and human rights supposedly won during the Civil Rights Movement no longer apply to…” quote by Michelle Alexander](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/b57/michelle-alexander-750_arrested_eventually-black-men-are-arrested-whethe_348081.jpg)
![“[T]he slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun; then moved back again toward slavery. —W.E.B Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America For” quote by Michelle Alexander](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/fdb/michelle-alexander-750_time_t-he-slave-went-free-stood-a-brief-momen_96485.jpg)