10/18: Dixie Be Damned @ Powells Books, Chicago
From the Convict Lease to the Prison Plantation: Race, Gender, and Revolt Against the Carceral State
This past year we have witnessed an explosion of activity in response to the ceaseless violence against Black and Brown people by the hands of the police, white vigilantes, and the prison system. We are living the legacy of hundreds of years of colonialism and slavery, but also are part of an inspiring counter-history of revolt against these forces. This will be a provocative presentation and discussion on several histories of rebellion against prison and forced labor, and how those histories connect with our own period of anti-police riots and prison struggle.
Authors Neal Shirley and Saralee Stafford will be reading from their new book Dixie Be Damned: 300 Years of Insurrection in the American South, focusing on a cross-racial miners’ and prisoners’ rebellion against Tennessee’s early convict lease system, and a 1975 revolt at a women’s prison in Raleigh, North Carolina.