Slaves of the State: Black Incarceration from the Chain Gang to the Penitentiary

(Paperback)

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The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, passed in 1865, has long been viewed as a definitive break with the nation's past by abolishing slavery and ushering in an inexorable march toward black freedom. "Slaves of the State" presents a stunning counterhistory to this linear narrative of racial, social, and legal progress in Ameri

Reviews

Slaves of the State cannot receive enough superlatives: eye-opening, deeply disturbing, intellectually stimulating, terrible, brilliant. Dennis Childs has written a moving and intricately researched book, which weaves novels and memory, the past and the present, ancient artifacts and modern tools of repression to reveal an unwelcome truth about modern day America and the biggest prison system on earth."Mumia Abu-Jamal, author of Writing on the Wall: Selected Prison Writings of Mumia Abu-Jamal

"Dennis Childs digs a ditch in Slaves of the State, laboring to present the tortured captives of chain gangs and penitentiaries in ways that bring the captors to shame. With incisive scholarship, Childs analyzes the terrors of black incarceration and trauma. This daring book simplifies a democracy corrupted by penal enslavement. Its haunting critique of the racial-sexual production of misery and ghosts, through the terrorizing structure of US penal law, needs to be read and remembered."Joy James, author of Seeking the Beloved Community

Author Bio

Dennis Childs is associate professor of literature and an affiliated faculty member of ethnic studies at the University of California, San Diego.