Universities of the Revolution: Black Nationalism and the Prison from the Nation of Islam to the Black Panther Party.

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Universities of the Revolution examines African American prisoners and their role within the black power movement from the 1950s, when the Nation of Islam established prison mosques, through to the height of black power activism between 1966 and 1972. In doing so, this project emphasises both the politicising impact of incarceration and prisoners' agency in challenging the strict racial order inside penal institutions.While the last eight years has seen an outpouring of research on the black power movement, the involvement of African American prisoners remains an underexplored area. This monograph-length study will draw together a broad range of sources, including prisoners' writing, sociological research, personal narratives, underground publications, F.B.I. reports, and mainstream media to offer the first comprehensive analysis of the relationship between radical black activists across the prison walls. In doing so, it will inform historical understanding of African American prisoners' lives and deepen our appreciation of the complexities of black power.The study revolves around three major themes. Firstly, it explores both the efforts of black power groups to recruit African American prisoners and the process by which they came to celebrate the penal system as a site and symbol of black resistance. This opens with the Nation of Islam, whose emphasis upon racial pride, self-help, and psychological transformation held great appeal to black convicts. Thus, the NOI established the basis for a more radical discourse on incarceration that emerged among such groups as the Black Panther Party and the Republic of New Afrika after 1966.Secondly, the research will explore the process of prisoner radicalisation and place it within a wider history of prison race relations. It proposes that, while only a small number of black convicts openly engaged with black power activism, their politicisation was intimately related to the disintegration of the traditional racial order within America's penal system from the late 1950s; it was therefore the product of prison desegregation, a rising black political consciousness, and larger changes in law enforcement during this period. By looking to sociological research conducted during the 1960s, it will reveal how the growing numerical dominance of black prisoners empowered them to challenge their lowly status in prison society. This process was particularly acute in California, New York, and Illinois where penal institutions experienced an unprecedented level of racial violence and protest after 1968. Thus this study will reveal the connections between the black power movement, prisoners, black communities, and the criminal justice system.A third theme is to consider official responses to this process of prisoner radicalisation. It is clear from prison wardens' reports that they considered the growing level of racial discontent inside their institutions to be a grave threat to their governance; they repeatedly connected these problems to the activities of radicalised black prisoners and black power groups outside the prison walls.Finally, by forming a Race and Criminal Justice Research Group, the project will create an international, cross-disciplinary network of scholars whose research addresses matters of race, racism and criminal justice in the broadest sense. Networking events will draw together academics to share their research agendas and explore new collaborative relationships. A website, an edited collection of essays, and public lectures will disseminate this activity both within and beyond academia.In conclusion, by illuminating the central role of prisoners and the penal system within radical black activist circles, this project promises to make a major contribution to the historiography of the black power movement, while also advancing academics' understanding of how race and racial identities impact upon criminal justice systems.