United Consumers Credit Union’s Post

Question! Are the Police and Crime Commission and West Midlands Police doing enough to build the trust and confidence of Black Communities? Your thoughts matter so please take this 60 second survey: https://lnkd.in/eNjnfAxY

We're currently promoting "Freeman's Challenge: The Murder That Shook America's Original Prison for Profit " by author and professor Robin Bernstein, forthcoming from the University of Chicago Press on May 1, 2024. → Synopsis: "In the early nineteenth century, as slavery gradually ended in the North, a village in New York State invented a new form of unfreedom: the profit-driven prison. Uniting incarceration and capitalism, the village of Auburn built a prison that enclosed industrial factories. There, 'slaves of the state' were leased to private companies. The prisoners earned no wages, yet they manufactured furniture, animal harnesses, carpets, and combs, which consumers bought throughout the North. Then one young man challenged the system. In Freeman’s Challenge, Robin Bernstein tells the story of an Afro-Native teenager named William Freeman who was convicted of a horse theft he insisted he did not commit and sentenced to five years of hard labor in Auburn’s prison. Incensed at being forced to work without pay, Freeman demanded wages. His challenge triggered violence: first against him, then by him. Freeman committed a murder that terrified and bewildered white America. And white America struck back—with aftereffects that reverberate into our lives today in the persistent myth of inherent Black criminality. William Freeman’s unforgettable story reveals how the North invented prison for profit half a century before the Thirteenth Amendment outlawed slavery 'except as a punishment for crime'—and how Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and other African Americans invented strategies of resilience and resistance in a city dominated by a citadel of unfreedom. Through one Black man, his family, and his city, Bernstein tells an explosive, moving story about the entangled origins of prison for profit and anti-Black racism." • • • #RobinBernstein #FreemansChallenge #TheMurderThatShookAmericasOriginalPrisonforProfit #PrisonForProfit #AuburnPrison #Unfreedom #BlackResilience #AntiBlackRacism #NorthsPrisonSystem #HarvardUniversity #SystemicInjustice #PrisonReform #WilliamFreeman #BlackHistoryUntold #HigherEducation #AcademicWriting #EdChat #Academia #RacialInnocence #CoriolisClient #CoriolisCompany

Question for people in Aberdeen: How do small Black or PoC led or art/creative organisations go about securing local authority funding? or bigger question is there even anything in place in terms of funding for marginalised organisations in Aberdeen?

📑 Explore new insights in the Alliance for Youth Justice (AYJ)'s latest briefing paper on the experiences of Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic young people transitioning to adulthood in the criminal justice system. 🔍 Delve into the findings here ➡️ https://buff.ly/3lZyt5k

We are currently promoting "What Kind of Bird Can’t Fly: A Memoir of Resilience and Resurrection" by author and executive director Dorsey Nunn, forthcoming from Heyday Books on April 30, 2024. "A decade behind bars spurs fifty powerful years of political and legal battles for freedom and human rights. When Dorsey Nunn shuffled, shackled like a slave, into the California State carceral system at age nineteen, he could barely read. While caged he received an education he never could have anticipated. His first lesson: Prison had a color scheme, and it didn’t match the larger society. On the inside, guards stoked racial warfare among prisoners while on the outside the machinery of the criminal legal system increasingly targeted poor Black and Brown communities with offenses, real or contrived. Nunn emerged from San Quentin after ten years behind bars, radicalized by his experience and emboldened by the militant wisdom of the men he met there. He poured his heart and mind into liberating all those he left behind, building a nationwide movement to restore justice to millions of system-impacted Americans. In this poignant, wry, and powerful memoir, Nunn links the politics of Black Power to the movements for Black lives and dignified reentry today. His story underscores the power of coalition building, persistence in the face of backlash, and the importance of centering the voices of experience in the fight for freedom—and proves, once and for all, that jailbirds can fly." #DorseyNunn #WhatKindOfBirdCantFly #AMemoirOfResilienceAndResurrection #Memoir #FreedomFighter #FormerlyIncarceratedLeader #ChampionOfChange #HumanRightsActivism #PrisonReform #BlackPowerMovement #JusticeForAll #SystemImpacted #PoliticalActivism #SocialJustice #PrisonEducation #MilitantWisdom #CoalitionBuilding #DignifiedReentry #RestorativeJustice #CriminalJusticeReform #LiberationMovement #2024Books #NewBooks #TBR #NonFictionBook #CoriolisCompany #CoriolisClient

Thank you to Essex County Circuit Court Clerk Christina Ambrose and her staff for loaning us two volumes of the county's "Registers of Free Negroes", 1810-1861, for our "Free Register" scanning project connected with Virginia Untold: The African American Narrative. We've scanned both volumes and will soon upload the images into our Virginia Untold database.   In 1793 and 1803, the Virginia General Assembly enacted legislation requiring "free Negroes or mulattoes . . . to be registered and numbered in a book to be kept by the town clerk, which shall specify age, name, color, status and by whom, and in what court emancipated." We've now digitized over 75 volumes representing free Black and multiracial people from across the state of Virginia from the late 18th century until the Civil War. https://bit.ly/3neRvFF   The Free Registers and other records that document free people of color demonstrate freedom on a spectrum for those who were not enslaved. While they may have been legally considered free, other laws restricted their movement by requiring money and passes to travel about the state. If free Black or multiracial individuals were found to be without a free certificate, they could be put in jail. After 1806, recently emancipated individuals had to receive special permission to remain in the state of Virginia.    This week the country celebrates Juneteenth. The events that this holiday celebrates were significant for both enslaved and free people, however it was only one step toward granting people of color full freedom in society. #Juneteenth #BlackHistory #archives #VirginiaHistory #VAUntold

“Dismantling the Pre-School to Prison Pipeline Through Black Literacy and Education for Transformation: Recommendations for School Leaders, Parents & Policymakers”. This study was prepared by Chike Akua, Ph.D. for the Wayfinder Foundation and Racial Justice NOW! The whitepaper examines the relationship between the pre-school to prison pipeline and the need for increased and effective Black literacy and education. Download your copy today! https://lnkd.in/efnFzzjr

As the debate around reparations intensified in California, members of the Black community stepped forward to share their perspective on what should be done to address systemic racism. In KQED’s “The Road to Reparations in California”, we learn how citizens in other states have held organizations and communities accountable for past wrongs. The video is a look at how reparations can be accomplished. And now that the California Reparations Task Force has delivered its landmark 1,200-page report with 115 recommendations for reparative measures, it will be up to the state legislature — and pressure from community organizers — to keep the momentum moving toward restitution. https://lnkd.in/g635vJGM

This is why I’m committed to teaching accurate truth and not perpetuate racial mythology. These ex-law enforcement officers learned to hate Black people, and Black men in particular. They did not just wake up that morning with enough hate to commit these horrible beatings and assaults. This is why accurate truth needs to be taught in our schools - from pre-K through college. I’m not suggesting that we focus on the ugliness- but rather the truths about myriad contributions made to this country by Africans and descendants of Africans. ALL can benefit from knowing the value of Black people in the development of this country. Banning books is not the answer. Censorship of curriculum is not the answer. Whitewashing history is not the answer. Telling accurate truth can counter the impact of negative narratives that distort and minimize the value of Black people in the US. It’s obvious that these ex-officers did not value the lives of these Black men. “I vow to tell the accurate story- not a story of critical race theory. But, rather a critical story of race in the US.” - Maxine Bryant https://lnkd.in/ev92pPyU

"Slavery happened over 400 years ago, Black people need to get over it" Erm? Absolutely not! You can not erase or ignore our history. And further more you need to stop telling Black people and other marginalized communities how to feel, protest or mourn. If you don't think the UK has a racism problem then let allow me to break it down to you. 1. In 1833 the British Government agreed to pay £20 Million in compensation to slave owners for 'Loss of Property' during the abolition. 2. Note that freed slaves were not awarded the money, but slave owners were. 3. That figure was so huge that is accounted for 40% of the national budget. 4. So, being such a huge number, it took a long time to pay that off. 182 years to be precise. 5. That means that up until 2015, UK taxpayers were paying off the money given to former slave owners. 6. That also means that descendants of slaves have also been paying to compensate the same people who enslaved their ancestors. 7. Let that sit with you for awhile. Because this is our history and our present. So no, I'm not going to 'get over it'. It's not about 'apologies'. It's about Changed Behaviour