Join Association of Pan-African Unity (APAU) in celebration of Black
History Month with Leigh-Anne Francis.

Today, African American females comprise ten percent of the United
States' total population, but they represent almost fifty percent of
the country's incarcerated women. This high incarceration rate
reflects the culmination of a historical trend in black women's
disproportionate arrests, convictions and confinement in the U.S.
penal system, itself a lynchpin of institutional racism, classism, and
sexism. In an attempt to support reformists' and prison abolitionists'
efforts to stem this crisis in African American women?s lives,
Professor Francis will briefly historicize the race and gender
ideologies driving perceptions of criminality, law enforcement and
penal practices. The remainder of her presentation will examine
imprisoned African American women's experiences in the present day,
including the centrality of poverty and sexual terror to the carceral
system, and the system's impact on mothers and their children.

Leigh-Anne Francis is a Ph.D. candidate in Rutgers' Department of
History where she teaches courses, such as The Crime and Prison
Industry in U.S. History. She first taught the course in 2011 as a
Visiting Fellow in Mount Holyoke's African American and African
Studies Department. Currently, she is writing a dissertation entitled
"Burning Down the Cage: African American Women Prisoners in Auburn,
New York, 1893 to 1933." This project explores African American, white
European immigrant, and native-born white women's criminal activity,
experiences of incarceration, and life after prison. Leigh-Anne has
taught voluntarily at Mountainvew Youth Correctional Facility for men
in Annandale, New Jersey. The young men with whom she works have
taught her how valuable and unexamined the privilege of freedom is in
her life; for this gift, she is deeply grateful.

Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/232977906785262/

To see all of our events go to www.facebook.com/blackhistorymonth2012

Gratefully,
--
Halima Ahmed'13
International Relations&  African American Studies


"When a cause comes along and you know in your bones that it is just,
yet refuse to defend it--at that moment you begin to die. And I have
never seen so many corpses walking around talking about justice." -
Mumia Abu-Jamal

════════CLICK HERE TO RETURN TO MAIN PAGE════════