FREEDOM RIDERS : A Stanley Nelson Film : American Experience – Repost

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FREEDOM RIDERS – A Stanley Nelson Film

The World Premiere: In 2010 at Sundance Film Festival, US

 A Documentary Competition

Award-winning filmmaker Stanley Nelson (Wounded Knee, Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple, The Murder of Emmett Till) returns to the Sundance Film Festival with his latest documentary FREEDOM RIDERS, the powerful, harrowing and ultimately inspirational story of six months in 1961 that changed America forever. From May until November 1961, more than 400 black and white Americans risked their lives—and many endured savage beatings and imprisonment—for simply traveling together on buses and trains as they journeyed through the Deep South. Deliberately violating Jim Crow laws, the Freedom Riders’ belief in non-violent activism was sorely tested as mob violence and bitter racism greeted them along the way.

FREEDOM RIDERS features testimony from a fascinating cast of central characters: the Riders themselves, state and federal government officials, and journalists who witnessed the rides firsthand.

“I got up one morning in May and I said to my folks at home, I won’t be back today because I’m a Freedom Rider. It was like a wave or a wind that you didn’t know where it was coming from or where it was going, but you knew you were supposed to be there.” — Pauline Knight-Ofuso, Freedom Rider

Despite two earlier Supreme Court decisions that mandated the desegregation of interstate travel facilities, black Americans in 1961 continued to endure hostility and racism while traveling through the South. The newly inaugurated Kennedy administration, embroiled in the Cold War and worried about the nuclear threat, did little to address domestic Civil Rights.

“It became clear that the Civil Rights leaders had to do something desperate, something dramatic to get Kennedy’s attention. That was the idea behind the Freedom Rides—to dare the federal government to do what it was supposed to do, and see if their constitutional rights would be protected by the Kennedy administration,” explains Raymond Arsenault, author of Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice, on which the film is partially based.

Organized by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the self-proclaimed “Freedom Riders” came from all strata of American society—black and white, young and old, male and female, Northern and Southern. They embarked on the Rides knowing the danger but firmly committed to the ideals of non-violent protest, aware that their actions could provoke a savage response but willing to put their lives on the line for the cause of justice.

Each time the Freedom Rides met violence and the campaign seemed doomed, new ways were found to sustain and even expand the movement. After Klansmen in Alabama set fire to the original Freedom Ride bus, student activists from Nashville organized a ride of their own. “We were past fear. If we were going to die, we were gonna die, but we can’t stop,” recalls Rider Joan Trumpauer-Mulholland. “If one person falls, others take their place.”

Later, Mississippi officials locked up more than 300 Riders in the notorious Parchman State Penitentiary. Rather than weaken the Riders’ resolve, the move only strengthened their determination. None of the obstacles placed in their path would weaken their commitment.

The Riders’ journey was front-page news and the world was watching. After nearly five months of fighting, the federal government capitulated. On September 22, the Interstate Commerce Commission issued its order to end the segregation in bus and rail stations that had been in place for generations. “This was the first unambiguous victory in the long history of the Civil Rights Movement. It finally said, ‘We can do this.’ And it raised expectations across the board for greater victories in the future,” says Arsenault.

“The people that took a seat on these buses, that went to jail in Jackson, that went to Parchman, they were never the same. We had moments there to learn, to teach each other the way of nonviolence, the way of love, the way of peace. The Freedom Ride created an unbelievable sense: Yes, we will make it. Yes, we will survive. And that nothing, but nothing, was going to stop this movement,” recalls Congressman John Lewis, one of the original Riders.

Says Stanley Nelson, “The lesson of the Freedom Rides is that great change can come from a few small steps taken by courageous people. And that sometimes to do any great thing, it’s important that we step out alone.”

CREDITS
A Stanley Nelson Film
A Firelight Media Production for AMERICAN EXPERIENCE

Produced, Written and Directed by
Stanley Nelson

Produced by
Laurens Grant

Edited by
Lewis Erskine, Aljernon Tunsil

Archival Producer
Lewanne Jones

Associate Producer
Stacey HolmanDirector of Photography
Robert Shepard

Composer
Tom Phillips

Music Supervisor
Rena Kosersky

Based in part on the book Freedom Riders by
Raymond Arsenault

AMERICAN EXPERIENCE is a production of WGBH Boston.
Senior producer
Sharon Grimberg

Executive producer
Mark Samels

What is Healthcare Reform … #ACA

The President’s Proposal puts American families and small business owners in control of their own health care.

– It makes insurance more affordable by providing the largest middle class tax cut for health care in history, reducing premium costs for tens of millions of families and small business owners who are priced out of coverage today. This helps over 31 million Americans afford health care who do not get it today — and makes coverage more affordable for many more.– It sets up a new competitive health insurance market giving tens of millions of Americans the exact same insurance choices that members of Congress will have.

– It brings greater accountability to health care by laying out commonsense rules of the road to keep premiums down and prevent insurance industry abuses and denial of care.

– It will end discrimination against Americans with pre-existing conditions.

– It puts our budget and economy on a more stable path by reducing the deficit by $100 billion over the next ten years — and about $1 trillion over the second decade — by cutting government overspending and reining in waste, fraud and abuse.

It includes a targeted set of changes to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the Senate-passed health insurance reform bill. Key changes include:

– Closing the Medicare prescription drug “doughnut hole” coverage gap;– Strengthening the Senate bill‘s provisions that make insurance affordablefor individuals and families;– Strengthening the provisions to fight fraud, waste, and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid;– Increasing the thresholdfor the excise tax on the most expensive health plans from $23,000 for a family plan to $27,500 and starting it in 2018 for all plans;– Improving insurance protections for consumers and creating a new Health Insurance Rate Authority to provide federal assistance and oversight to states in conducting reviews of unreasonable rate increases and other unfair practices of insurance plans.

For more information, check out:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/health-care-meeting

Picture This: Health Care Law Saves Women’s Lives … Judy Waxman, National Women’s Law Center

Death by a million cuts. That’s the plan of some members of Congress who have held hearings and votes to cut programs in the health care law. And some of these cuts go to the heart of women’s health. They just don’t get it. We need to show — literally show — them why the health care law is important to women and their families. Join our photo blog and tell our leaders — I Will NOT Be Denied™! From the over 20 million women who have been able to get preventive health care without a co-pay to the nearly 40 million women who no longer face a lifetime limit on their coverage, women everywhere are already benefiting from the health care law. And in just a few months, women will start getting access to birth control and wellness visits without co-pays or deductibles. We can’t let some members of Congress play politics with women’s health and stop this progress. As they say — a picture is worth a thousand words. Join our photo blog and make sure your leaders know we will not go back: women will not be denied. Sincerely, Judy Waxman Vice President for Health and Reproductive Rights National Women’s Law Center

Media Matters for America: Unethical Behavior and FOX

Conservative Media Attempts To Disprove The Wage Inequality Between Men And Women Fall Flat As Democrats push for the Paycheck Fairness Act to address wage inequality between men and women, conservative media figures have claimed that there is no real wage inequality because men work more hours than women and thus earn more. But studies have shown that an earnings discrepancy between men and women persists, even when accounting for a variety of factors, including hours worked. Read More

No Matter How Right-Wing Media Spin It, Millions Would Feel “Sharp Effects” Of GOP Budget Right-wing media have responded to criticism of Rep. Paul Ryan’s GOP budget plan by trying to reframe the plan as not actually calling for spending “cuts,” but that it simply limits the rate of an increase in spending. But experts agree that Ryan’s plan would indeed reduce funding to programs that assist millions of low- and middle-income Americans; as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) has noted, Ryan’s plan includes reductions in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) funding that alone would “necessitate ending assistance for millions of low-income families.” Read More

“Not A Fit Person” To Lead: Rupert Murdoch’s Indifference To Unethical Behavior Infects Fox News A British government panel investigating the News Corp. phone-hacking scandal has released a report concluding that Rupert Murdoch is “not a fit person” to lead a major company, citing his “willful blindness” to unethical behavior. At Fox News, which is a division of News Corp., this indifference has consistently manifested itself as an absence of journalistic ethics. Read More

Congressional Budget Office: HR3783, HR3874 and Proposed Fuel standards

H.R. 3783, Countering Iran in the Western Hemisphere Act of 2012

• H.R. 3874, Black Hills Cemetery Act

How Would Proposed Fuel Economy Standards Affect the Highway Trust Fund?

• CBO Releases Study on How Proposed Fuel Economy Standards Would Affect the Highway Trust Fund

President Obama Seeks The Right Balance In Afghanistan – the Progress Report

By         Tara Culp-Ressler

Striking the Chord Between Ending the War and Offering Long-Term Support

President Barack Obama signed a Strategic Partnership Agreement with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, outlining a plan to withdraw combat troops from Afghanistan by 2014 and to continue aiding the Afghan government through 2024. The agreement assures the Afghan people of long-term support during a time of transition, sending a clear message that the U.S. is committed to more than just military security — in fact, the agreement sets up a new bilateral commission to address corruption, political reform, women’s rights, and human rights abuses in the country. It also contains a clause pledging that the U.S. will not attack another country from its bases within Afghanistan.

Obama detailed the points of the agreement in an address to the nation from Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan last night. In his remarks, Obama acknowledged that the American public has grown weary of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, pledging to both end the longstanding U.S. involvement and remain committed to building a lasting infrastructure in the region. This was not a “mission accomplished” speech; instead, Obama noted that there will be “difficult days ahead” and that the “enormous sacrifices of our men and women are not over,” balancing the need to bring troops home with the need to set up political, economic, and military stability in Afghanistan before declaring an end to the war.

The Longest War In Our Nation’s History

George W. Bush’s war in Iraq — which President Obama opposed from the beginning and eventually brought to an end — drained valuable energy and resources from Afghanistan, the country Obama has always considered to be the real priority. After over ten years of U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan, which marks it as the longest war in U.S. history, the newly-signed strategic partnership agreement now offers a way forward amid murky waters. A review of some political challenges that currently face the country:

PUBLIC OPINION DROPS OFF FOR U.S. INVOLVEMENT IN AFGHANISTAN: During the first few months of this year, public support for the war in Afghanistan dropped sharply, according to polls from CNN and Pew Research Center. The latest New York Times/CBS poll released in late March finds that more than two-thirds of Americans think that the United States should no longer be at war in Afghanistan — a 16 percentage point increase from the polling just four months earlier. Negative impressions of the U.S.’ longest war are growing among Republicans as well as Democrats, although the two parties have differing approaches to the specific timeline for the withdrawal of American troops. In fact, Republicans turned dramatically against the war in recent months, with public opinion polls reporting that the majority of Republican voters now say that the Afghanistan war is not worth fighting.

RECENT INSTABILITY IN THE REGION: The current strategic agreement comes after several months of tension in Afghanistan. In late February, U.S. troops’ inadvertent burning of Qurans sparked mass protests and violence against NATO forces across the country. March brought a string of increased attacks from Afghan forces against their purported U.S. allies, as well as the AWOL U.S. soldier who allegedly opened fire on Afghan civilians and killed 17 innocent citizens. And just two hours after Obama left Afghanistan last night, a suicide bomb attack killed seven Afghans in Kabul — the Taliban has claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was intended to send Obama the message that Taliban insurgents oppose the U.S.’ strategic partnership agreement with Afghanistan and urge U.S. troops to withdraw immediately.

ROMNEY’S APPROACH TO AFGHANISTAN STILL UNCLEAR: What remains to be seen, however, is where exactly the presumptive Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney lands on the U.S.’ policy toward Afghanistan. Romney has avoided saying exactly what he thinks on the issue, neglecting to offer how his foreign policy approach would specifically differ from the President’s and often even contradicting himself when he speaks on a timeline for withdrawal. Romney has criticized the Obama administration for engaging in negotiations with the Taliban and using the anniversary of the death of Osama bin Laden to “politicize” the war, but appears to be backing off after Obama’s speech — last night, Romney’s campaign released a mild-mannered press release welcoming Obama’s comments from Afghanistan.

A Way Forward For U.S.-Afghanistan Relations: Easier Said Than Done

Although Obama is thankfully nuanced in his approach to Afghanistan, policy analysts warn that the devil is in the details. In two weeks, NATO security councils will convene in Chicago to discuss the U.S.-Afghanistan strategic partnership agreement at length. There is much more to be done as the Obama administration moves toward a comprehensive, long-term strategy for transitioning power over to the Afghan government and holding elections in 2014. The president has set the course in the right direction, but the hard work is just beginning.

Evening Brief: Important Stories That You May Have Missed

A top Romney donor is writing a book arguing for even more income inequality.

George Zimmerman’s MySpace page includes disparaging remarks about Mexicans and women.

According to Pennsylvania’s Gov. Tom Corbett (R), forcing a woman to get an ultrasound before getting an abortion “is not invasive at all.”

Miss Delaware’s “controversial” anti-choice advocacy reminds how little relevance the Miss America pageant has in society.

The sponsor of anti-choice legislation in Minnesota thinks Viagra is a “wonderful drug” that “helps create life.”

No, Kathleen Sebelius does not need a legal memo to ignore false anti-contraception legal arguments.

What’s it like driving a group of young LGBT activists around to unwelcoming conservative religious schools?

Portrait Of Obama As A Pretentious Young Man: In case you were ever interested in reading about Obama at twenty-two, wearing a blue and white sarong…eating raisins? So risqué!

Crew Love: Romney hanging out with fellow rich people, talking about being rich.

Other recent Progress Reports

May 1, 2012: THREE Charts For May Day

Why Our Economy Isn’t Working for Workers Today is May Day, an international holiday honoring workers.  Unfortunately, our economy — and its tax code rigged to benefit the wealthiest few — isn’t working for many workers. ThinkProgress’ Annie-Rose Strasser highlights three charts showing why we need an economy that works for everyone, not more conservative [...]

Apr 30, 2012: The Facts About The Death of Osama bin Laden

Obama: “I Said That We’d Go After bin Laden if We Had a Clear Shot at Him and I Did.” This week marks the one-year anniversary of the death of Osama bin Laden. The president’s campaign has taken the opportunity to remind the American people of one of his greatest achievements, as well as Mitt [...]

Apr 27, 2012: The Latest GOP Assaults on Women

The Republican War on Women Is Only Getting Bigger While continuing to deny there is any such thing, the Republicans continue their all-out war on women, their health care, and their families. Here’s the latest. All of the Senators Voting Against the Violence Against Women Act Were Republican Men Yesterday, the Senate passed the Violence [...]

Apr 26, 2012: Did You Like George W. Bush’s Foreign Policy?

Mitt Romney’s Misguided, Mistaken, and Misbegotten Foreign Policy Today, Vice President Biden gave a speech at New York University laying out a broad attack on Mitt Romney — a candidate whose only foreign policy experience comes from shipping jobs overseas — and his approach to foreign policy.  Biden said that Romney was relying on the [...]

AFL – CIO : Tell Verizon to treat workers &customers with RESPECT

VERIZON GREED MUST STOP Verizon has seen its profits and CEO pay soar while it cut jobs and gutted health care and other benefits for workers. These VeriGreedy practices need to stop.Call 800-229-9460 now to tell Verizon to treat its workers and customers with respect.Share on Twitter Recently, we launched our CEO Pay and the 99% website1 to expose the outlandish practices of companies giving huge compensation to CEOs while cutting jobs and sitting on record amounts in cash holdings and short-term investments. One of the most egregious examples of corporate excess and greed is Verizon. While Verizon tripled the salary of CEO Lowell McAdam to $23.1 million last year,2 it also was cutting U.S. jobs, gutting worker pensions and charging current and retired employees and their families thousands of dollars more for health benefits while reducing disability coverage. This is unacceptable and we need to let Verizon know it. Call 800-229-9460 now to record a message that will be delivered directly to Verizon executives. Today, while Verizon holds its shareholders meeting in Huntsville, Ala., working families and Verizon customers in Huntsville and across the country will be calling on the company to end these “VeriGreedy” practices, respect its customers and the workers who keep the company running and save good, middle-class jobs. Because of the hard work of tens of thousands of customer support representatives, technicians, electricians and other workers who provide the best quality service they can to customers, Verizon has enjoyed success. Verizon workers are part of the solution, not the problem. They should not be punished with job cuts and increased health care and benefit costs while Verizon executives get huge pay raises and the company sits on $14 billion in cash holdings and short-term investments.3 Call 800-229-9460 now and tell Verizon to treat workers and customers with respect—by negotiating a fair contract. Corporate greed on this scale is bad enough, but when combined with neglecting workers, it’s completely unacceptable. Together we can put an end to these terrible corporate practices—but only if you speak up and make your voice heard. In Solidarity, Andy Richards New Media Strategist, AFL-CIO P.S. After you have left your message for Verizon executives, make sure to click here to find out if an event is happening in your area today you can attend to support Verizon workers. 1 http://www.aflcio.org/Corporate-Watch/CEO-Pay-and-the-99. 2 http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20120319-714892.html. 3 Verizon Communications Form 10-K, filed 2/24/2012.

In the Library … Lillian Walker , by John C. Hughes

OLYMPIA…Bremerton civil rights heroine Lillian Walker

The new book is called ”Lillian Walker, Washington Civil Rights Pioneer,” written by John C. Hughes, an author and interviewer with The Legacy Project, an oral history program established by the Office of Secretary of State in 2008. The book is published by the Washington State Heritage Center and printed by Gorham Printing.Joyce.

“The YWCA’s goal is to make Mrs. Walker’s inspirational story available to all school and public libraries in the nation as an example of a young person who not only had the courage to stand up for what is right, but also to continue to stay involved in her community to make it better over a 70-year time period,” Jackson said.

Click here http://www.sos.wa.gov/legacyproject/oralhistories/lillianwalker/ to read The Legacy Project’s oral history on Lillian Walker based on sit-down interviews, as well as photos and other materials.

Lillian Walker helped found the Bremerton branch of the NAACP in 1943 and went on to serve as state NAACP secretary. She was conducting sit-ins and filing civil rights lawsuits when Martin Luther King was in junior high school.

Mrs. Walker and her late husband, James, arrived in the Navy Yard city of Bremerton in 1941 together with thousands of other African-American wartime workers who thought they had left racism behind in the South and industrialized cities of Midwest and East. But many Kitsap County businesses, including cafes, taverns, drug stores and barber shops, displayed signs saying, “We Cater to White Trade Only.” In a landmark case, the Walkers took a soda fountain owner to court and won.

Mrs. Walker is a charter member of the YWCA of Kitsap County, former chairman of the Kitsap County Regional Library Board, a 69-year member of Ebenezer African Methodist Episcopal Church, and a founder and former president of Church Women United in Bremerton.

To learn more about The Legacy Project, go to its web site at http://www.sos.wa.gov/heritage/LegacyProject/default.aspx.

The summer of my discontent in 2009… has become 3yrs of Republican nonsense we must STOP &some News

just another rant

The summer of 2009, filled with what apparently was just the beginning of nasty Teapublican behavior ugly rhetoric and a whole lot of pollution spewing out of all their holes… i called it the summer of my discontent

While i believe in the right to freedom of speech, I don’t believe that the speech should invoke fear, hate, lies and death. Americans should not be allowed to go overseas and speak ill of the President, no matter who is in office. The position of President should be held with great regard definitely not disrespected by anyone while in other countries.

I am a person of colour (mixed decent) from a huge family who has had to live with caution while driving, walking, shopping etc. Fact is, people of colour live this way, and it is not right. In this year 2009, we have a bi-racial President, who is kind, gentle, calm, cool and definitely not an angry man and has had nothing but angry words, behavior, and hate spewed at him. It is disguised by some as freedom of speech, others as a fear of government take overs; most if not all expose a fear of change and definitely by a group of people who do not get it (republicans). The election results showed a diverse group of say 53% voted for Obama as our next President. It is a worthy reminder to Republicans because they lack a sense of actual events having taken place. The last administration failed us in my view, my opinion, and my freedom of speech. i don’t think I am alone in that feeling but I don’t wish he(bush) were dead, or any ill will on any level to him(bush) yet the comments from the likes of Joe Wilson or a rush Limbaugh, g beck and so many has taken me back because i feel the hate right through the TV. The lies and the miss-information has reached an all-time peak, I found myself so irritated, I had to join the effort to fight back against the Teapublicans rhetoric . As some ex and current people in politics use our 24/7 news cycles as sources to spread what they called “news” which sounds and feels like old style propaganda, once laced with disrespectful language against the Office of the President has become an all-out assault in 2012. Yes, as a person of colour i am upset, compelled to respond to each tweet that even remotely sounds like racial hate, fear, and whatnot. I was repulsed, it was disrespectful, it was sad, and inappropriate, knowing Joe Wilson and his other Teapublican comrades had/have to be told this behavior was inappropriate, told to apologize is beyond my understanding of adult behavior. Yes, this is what the first amendment covers, yet, I would wager that given the right circumstance this gross misuse of our 1^st amendment right s by the democratic party would be given the hammer until they apologized on national TV. Oh wait, this is already happening. What we all heard spewed by righties back in 2009 continues in 2012 seemingly embodied by a southern man acting in old style southern behavior and if you know your history, understand it, it is clear enough. That old cliché what goes around comes around and its meaning (A person’s actions, whether good or bad, will often have consequences for that person-wiki) is scary but we must all Stand Up Speak Out and fight against that old cliché becoming an ugly reality. Our President is a man who wants to put us back on track because some greedy fools derailed it.

The solutions to our economic problem should have nothing to do with the colour of our President’s skin, it has to do with someone who saw the problem, wanted to change it in a bipartisan way, though Teapublicans decided “just say no” was a much better way to do the People’s business. While we all know change is hard, it takes time and obviously a certain group of people have been led to believe that President Obama is not only taking us somewhere else that could be bad for America, they use heritage, his skin colour and edit his conversation to portray him as the “the other”  These claims are outrageous.

The President’s agenda seems simple to me. Maybe he is ahead of his time or at least the clock that Teapublicans are trying to push us all on. Americans  deserve a right to live a good life, afford health-care, a life where upward mobility is possible, a right to be all we can be - educated, a right to jobs for the 21st century and equal rights should be the norm not a political football.

During the summer of 2009, the path to prosperity or the lack thereof was being laid out right before our very eyes by folks like rep. Paul Ryan. I wonder why my fellow Professional Lefties did not see it then because we now have a Teapublican paper trail. I wonder if the PL knows how their members of Congress voted during President Obama’s 1st term, let alone the fact that a number of blue dogs sided with the extreme right. That was then and though most if not all blue dogs were voted out of office in 2010; members of the tea party have done their best to make our Government look silly chaotic and suspect replaced them.

Those in public service , take an oath to do no harm call themselves Public Servants, but if you take a hard look at how this Congress of 112th,2nd Session has acted … you would be feeling discontented too, but it’s 2012 let’s move into the 21st Century .

in Other News …

VP Biden Promotes Obama Tax Plan in New Hampshire

Secretary Clinton Speaks on U.S. Strategy in the Asia-Pacific

Administrator of NTIA Discusses Telecom Issues

DSCC and NRSC Executive Directors on Newsmakers

 Katrina Lantos Swett, President & CEO of The Lantos Foundation

IMF Director Lagarde Speaks about Global Economic Recovery

in the Library … Michelle Alexander”s ‘The New Jim Crow,’ a troubling and necessary book … a worthy repost

Leonard Pitts Jr. / Syndicated columnist

Michelle Alexander”s ‘The New Jim Crow,’ a troubling and necessary book

Columnist Leonard Pitts Jr. suggests reading “The New Jim Crow,” by Michelle Alexander, who contends that the mass incarceration of black men for nonviolent drug offenses, combined with sentencing disparities and laws making it legal to discriminate against felons in housing, employment, education and voting, constitute nothing less than a new racial caste system.

Syndicated columnist

Related

“You have to face the fact that the whole problem is really the blacks. The key is to devise a system that recognizes this all while not appearing to.”

— Richard Nixon as quoted by H.R. Haldeman, supporting a get-tough-on drugs strategy

“They give black people time like it’s lunch down there. You go down there looking for justice, that’s what you find: just us.”— Richard Pryor

Michelle Alexander was an ACLU attorney in Oakland, preparing a racial-profiling lawsuit against the California Highway Patrol. The ACLU had put out a request for anyone who had been profiled to get in touch. One day, in walked this black man.

He was maybe 19 and toted a thick sheaf of papers, what Alexander calls an “incredibly detailed” accounting of at least a dozen police stops over a nine-month period, with dates, places and officers’ names. This was, she thought, a “dream plaintiff.”

But it turned out he had a record, a drug felony — and she told him she couldn’t use him; the state’s attorney would eat him alive. He insisted he was innocent, said police had planted drugs and beaten him. But she was no longer listening. Finally, enraged, he snatched the papers back and started shredding them.

“You’re no better than the police,” he cried. “You’re doing what they did to me!” The conviction meant he couldn’t work or go to school, had to live with his grandmother. Did Alexander know how that felt? And she wanted a dream plaintiff? “Just go to my neighborhood,” he said. “See if you can find one black man my age they haven’t gotten to already.”

She saw him again a couple of months later. He gave her a potted plant from his grandmother’s porch — he couldn’t afford flowers — and apologized. A few months after that, a scandal broke: Oakland police officers accused of planting drugs and beating up innocent victims. One of the officers involved was the one named by that young man.

“It was,” says Alexander now, more than 10 years later, “the beginning of me asking some hard questions of myself as a civil-rights lawyer. … What is actually going on in his neighborhood? How is it that they’ve already gotten to all the young African-American men in his neighborhood? I began questioning my own assumptions about how the criminal-justice system works.”

The result is a compelling new book. Others have written of the racial bias of the criminal-injustice system. In “The New Jim Crow,” Alexander goes a provocative step further. She contends that the mass incarceration of black men for nonviolent drug offenses, combined with sentencing disparities and laws making it legal to discriminate against felons in housing, employment, education and voting, constitute nothing less than a new racial caste system. A new segregation.

She has a point. Yes, the War on Drugs is officially race-neutral. So were the grandfather clause and other Jim Crow laws whose intention and effect was nevertheless to restrict black freedom.

The War on Drugs is a war on African-American people and we countenance it because we implicitly accept certain assumptions sold to us by news and entertainment media, chief among them that drug use is rampant in the black community. But. The. Assumption. Is. WRONG.

According to federal figures, blacks and whites use drugs at a roughly equal rate in percentage terms. In terms of raw numbers, whites are far and away the biggest users — and dealers — of illegal drugs.

So why aren’t cops kicking their doors in? Why aren’t their sons pulled over a dozen times in nine months? Why are black men 12 times likelier to be jailed for drugs than white ones? Why aren’t white communities robbed of their fathers, brothers, sons?

With inexorable logic, “The New Jim Crow” propounds an answer many will resist and most have not even considered. It is a troubling and profoundly necessary book.

Please read it.

Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts Jr.’s column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is: lpitts@miamiherald.com