How Crime Policy Has Increased the Black Prison Population

Michelle Alexander says that many of the gains of the civil rights movement have been undermined by the mass incarceration of blacks in the war on drugs.

The organizer and former Black Panther member was born to a white mother and black father in the South. When he was six years old, he was adopted by a black family in California. His mother sent him away for his own safety, but he never understood why, and grew up feeling abandoned. At 17 he was sent to prison after killing a man during an aborted mugging. In prison he met George Jackson who changed his life by exposing him to the teachings of the Black Panther movement. Spain became a leader in the Black Panther Movement in prison.

When police pulled a gun on Bryan Stevenson as he was sitting quietly in his car in Atlanta, he knew he had to effect change. His memoir describes his attempts, including freeing men on death row.