A Quote by James Forman, Jr.

Mass incarceration is the result of small, distinct steps, each of whose significance becomes more apparent over time, and only when considered in light of later events.

James Forman, Jr.

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James Forman, Jr.
American - Lawyer

Arguably the most important parallel between mass incarceration and Jim Crow is that both have served to define the meaning and significance of race in America. Indeed, a primary function of any racial caste system is to define the meaning of race in its time. Slavery defined what it meant to be black (a slave), and Jim Crow defined what it meant to be black (a second-class citizen). Today mass incarceration defines the meaning of blackness in America: black people, especially black men, are criminals. That is what it means to be black.

Michelle Alexander

From reading over the notes for each session it was apparent that there had been improvement by more or less regular steps from almost complete terror at sight of the rabbit to a completely positive response with no signs of disturbance.

Mary Cover Jones

History...shows that even seemingly miraculous advances are in fact the result of many people taking small steps together over a long period of time.

Paul Rogat Loeb

For it is only framed in space that beauty blooms. Only in space are events and objects and people unique and significant-and therefore beautiful. A tree has significance if one sees it against the empty face of sky. A note in music gains significance from the silences on either side. A candle flowers in the space of night. Even small and casual things take on significance if they are washed in space, like a few autumn grasses in one corner of an Oriental painting, the rest of the page bare.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Each smallest act of kindness, reverberates across great distances and spans of time --affecting lives unknown to the one who’s generous spirit, was the source of this good echo. Because kindness is passed on and grows each time it’s passed until a simple courtesy becomes an act of selfless courage, years later, and far away. Likewise, each small meanness, each expression of hatred, each act of evil.

Dean Koontz

I believe this system of mass incarceration would have Dr. King turning in his grave. There's no doubt in my mind that Dr. King would be doing everything in his power to build a movement to end mass incarceration in the United States; a movement for education, not incarceration.

Michelle Alexander

We have a mass incarceration among minorities that is disproportionate to our population. It's a travesty what's going on with our mass incarceration specifically of minorities.

John Layfield

I am still committed to building a movement to end mass incarceration, but I will not do it with blinders on. If all we do is end mass incarceration, this movement will not have gone nearly far enough.

Michelle Alexander

All mass movements avail themselves of action as a means of unification. The conflicts a mass movement seeks and incites serve not only to down its enemies but also to strip its followers of their distinct individuality and render them more soluble in the collective medium.

Eric Hoffer

I think it's critically important that the people who have been most harmed by mass incarceration, by mass deportation, by neoliberalism, by all of it, not only have a voice in crafting these platforms but emerge and are supported as real leaders in these movements.

Michelle Alexander

As more information becomes available, and the magnitude of the storm's impact becomes even more apparent, it becomes clear that this recovery will be lengthy.

Jo Bonner

The time has already come when each country needs a considered national policy about what size of population, whether larger or smaller than at present or the same, is most expedient. And having settled this policy, we must take steps to carry it into operation. The time may arrive a little later when the community as a whole must pay attention to the innate quality as well as to the mere numbers of its future members.

John Maynard Keynes

Whenever I visit an industrialized nation that isn't the United States, it immediately becomes apparent how much more educated and informed and aware of international events their citizens are compared to Americans.

Jim Goad

Remember that small steps can create giant leaps over time, so never think of any financial or spending matter as a small one.

David Bach

Space, time, mass, and energy originate from Chaos, have their being in Chaos, and through the agency of the aether are moved by Chaos into the multiple forms of existence. Some of the various densities of the aether have only a partial or probablistic differentiation into existence, and are somewhat indeterminate in space and time. In the same way that mass exists as a curvature in space-time, extending with a gradually diminishing force to infinity that we recognize as gravity, so do all events, particularly events involving the human mind, send ripples through all creation.

Peter J. Carroll

We're foolish if we think we're going to end mass incarceration unless we are willing to deal with the reality that huge percentages of poor people are going to remain jobless, locked out of the mainstream economy, unless and until they have a quality education that prepares them well for the new economy. There has got to be much more collaboration between the two movements and a greater appreciation for the work of the advocates in each community. It's got to be a movement that's about education, not incarceration - about jobs, not jails.

Michelle Alexander

A Quote by James Forman, Jr.

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