Clergy Brings Author of “The New Jim Crow” to San Diego to Explore Race and Mass Criminalization in the U.S.

San Diego — Community members will gather for a town hall at St. Stephen’s Cathedral on Saturday morning at 10 a.m. to hear from Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Criminalization in the Age of Colorblindness, about the role of race and criminalization in the U.S. The meeting is organized by the United African American Ministerial Action Council (UAAMAC), with support from local individuals as well as the Drug Policy Alliance.

WHAT: Town Hall Meeting with author of “The New Jim Crow”
WHEN: Saturday, October 2, 10 a.m.
WHERE: St. Stephens Cathedral, 5825 Imperial Avenue, San Diego, 92114
WHO: Concerned members of the community
WHY: This is a rare chance to hear from the author herself about this important book!

From The New Jim Crow: “Jarvious Cotton’s great-great-grandfather could not vote as a slave. His great-grandfather was beaten to death by the Klu Klux Klan for attempting to vote. His grandfather was prevented from voting by Klan intimidation; his father was barred by poll taxes and literacy tests. Today, Cotton cannot vote because he, like many black men in the United States, has been labeled a felon and is currently on parole.”

Michelle Alexander is a longtime civil rights advocate and litigator. She won a 2005 Soros Justice Fellowship and now holds a joint appointment at the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity and the Mortiz College of Law at Ohio State University. Alexander served for several years as director of the Racial Justice Project at the ACLU of Northern California, and subsequently directed the Civil Rights Clinics at Stanford Law School, where she was an associate professor. Alexander is a former law clerk for Justice Harry Blackmun on the U.S. Supreme Court, and has appeared as a commentator on CNN, MSNBC, and NPR. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness is her first book.

The United African American Ministerial Action Council (UAAMAC), the convener of the town hall, is committed to the construction of a Beloved Community of justice, with equitable access to opportunities in the pursuit of happiness, education, economic development, health, family stability, peace and prosperity for all people. To this endeavor, we invite the participation of all people of good will to work collectively in making The Beloved Community a reality in the 21st Century.

The Saturday event will be preceded by an October 1 evening book-signing at 6 p.m. at Joe & Vi Jacobs Center (404 Euclid Avenue, 92102). For more information, contact Robert Sanders at [email protected] or (619) 264-1213.