Leavenworth’s Political Prisoners: Race, Resistance, and the Prison’s Archive
Sara M. Benson
Chapter from the book: Benson, S. 2019. The Prison of Democracy: Race, Leavenworth, and the Culture of Law.
Part of
Chapter from the book: Benson, S. 2019. The Prison of Democracy: Race, Leavenworth, and the Culture of Law.
Chapter 5 explores the concept of mass incarceration at Leavenworth through the history of political prisoners. Although the prison has historically been segregated by race, this chapter looks toward social movements that worked across social and racial differences in the spirit of prison abolition. The chapter argues that Leavenworth continues to be a national anchor of mass incarceration, but it shows how movements in the future can draw upon the knowledge the social movements of the Black Twenty-Fourth Infantry, the Industrial Workers of the World, and the Mexican anarchist-revolutionaries found in the prison archives to continue working toward dismantling the prison.
Benson, S. 2019. Leavenworth’s Political Prisoners: Race, Resistance, and the Prison’s Archive. In: Benson, S, The Prison of Democracy. California: University of California Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/luminos.66.f
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Published on April 16, 2019