New Jim Crow, The

As the United States celebrates the nation's "triumph over race" with the election of Barack Obama, the majority of young black men in major American cities are locked behind bars or labeled felons for life. Jim Crow laws were wiped off the books decades ago, but today an astounding percentage of the African-American community is warehoused in prisons or trapped in a permanent, second-class status, much like their grandparents before them. The New Jim Crow challenges the civil rights community and all of us to place mass incarceration at the forefront of a new movement for racial justice in America.