Professor James Forman, Jr., of Yale Law School, spoke at Alabama Law today about his book, Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America.
Professor Forman said he wrote the book for two reasons. First, he wanted to write a book that was “rooted in black politics, black intellectual history, and black cultural history.”
“I wanted to write something that showed the complexity and the diversity and the variety of perspectives on a range of issues, in particular, the issue of what to do over the last 50 years of our criminal legal system.”
Second, he wanted to draw on his work in the criminal justice system.
Locking Up Our Own won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in nonfiction. It examines the complex and often conflicted history of African-American leaders and communities advocating for increased levels of incarceration. Professor Forman’s visit was made possible, in part, through the generosity of The Order of the Coif society.