White fear: the New Jim Crow

This post is part three of a four-part series examining white fear and its role in establishing a system of institutionalized racism through violence. As there should be with any discussion on something as complex as systemic racism, there is an inherent overlap in these blog posts. The story of racism in America is not linear, nor is systemic and institutional racism one-layered systems of oppression. Rather, there is a deeply-entrenched and multifaceted structure, shaped by a complex history of nuance and violence with each layer of the system interacting with others, creating a pervasive network of discrimination and inequality that continues to impact society in profound ways.

The backlash against the gains of Black Americans in the Reconstruction Era was swift and severe. As freed Black Americans in the South obtained political power and began the long march toward greater social and economic equality, whites reacted with panic and outrage. Southern conservatives vowed to reverse Reconstruction and sought the “abolition of the Freedmen’s Bureau (the U.S. government agency established to assist formerly enslaved people and impoverished whites in the South by providing food, shelter, education, and medical care) and all political instrumentalities designed to secure Negro supremacy.” Their campaign to “redeem” the South was reinforced by a resurgent Ku Klux Klan, which fought a terrorist campaign against Reconstruction governments and local leaders, complete with bombings, lynchings, and mob violence.

The terrorist campaign proved highly successful. “Redemption” resulted in the withdrawal of federal troops from the South and the effective abandonment of Black Americans and all those who had fought for or supported an egalitarian racial order. The federal government no longer made any effort to enforce federal civil rights legislation, and funding for the Freedmen’s Bureau was slashed to such a degree that the agency became virtually defunct.

Once again, vagrancy laws and other laws defining activities such as “mischief” and “insulting gestures” as crimes were enforced vigorously against blacks. The aggressive enforcement of these criminal offenses opened up an enormous market for convict leasing, in which prisoners were contracted out as laborers to the highest private bidder. Douglas Blackmon, in Slavery by Another Name, describes how tens of thousands of Black Americans were arbitrarily arrested during this period, many of them hit with court costs and fines, which had to be worked off in order to secure their release. With no means to pay off their “debts,” prisoners were sold as forced laborers to lumber camps, brickyards, railroads, farms, plantations, and dozens of corporations throughout the South. Death rates were shockingly high, for the private contractors had no interest in the health and well-being of their laborers, unlike the earlier slave owners who needed their slaves, at a minimum, to be healthy enough to survive hard labor. Laborers were subject to almost continual lashing by long horse whips, and those who collapsed due to injuries or exhaustion were often left to die.

Convicts had no meaningful legal rights at this time and no effective redress. They were understood, quite literally, to be slaves of the state. The Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution had abolished slavery but allowed one major exception: slavery remained appropriate as punishment for a crime. In a landmark decision by the Virginia Supreme Court, Ruffin v. Commonwealth, issued at the height of Southern Redemption, the court put to rest any notion that convicts were legally distinguishable from slaves: “For a time, during his service in the penitentiary, he is in a state of penal servitude to the State. He has, as a consequence of his crime, not only forfeited his liberty, but all his personal rights except those which the law in its humanity accords to him. He is for the time being a slave of the State. He is civiliter mortus; and his estate, if he has any, is administered like that of a dead man.”

The state of Mississippi eventually moved from hiring convict labor to organizing its own convict labor camp, known as Parchman Farm. It was not alone. During the decade following Redemption, the convict population grew ten times faster than the general population: “Prisoners became younger and blacker, and the length of their sentences soared.” It was the nation’s first prison boom and, as they are today, the prisoners were disproportionately black.

After a brief period of progress during Reconstruction, Black Americans found themselves, once again, virtually defenseless. The criminal justice system was strategically employed to force African Americans back into a system of extreme repression and control, a tactic that would continue to prove successful for generations to come. Even as convict leasing faded away, strategic forms of exploitation and repression emerged anew. As Blackmon notes: “The apparent demise of leasing prisoners seemed a harbinger of a new day. But the harsher reality of the South was that the new post-Civil War neoslavery was evolving—not disappearing.”

Redemption signified a pivotal moment in the effort by dominant whites to establish a new racial order that safeguarded their economic, political, and social interests in a post-slavery society. However, there was still no clear consensus among whites about what this new racial hierarchy should entail. While the Redeemers who dismantled Reconstruction were inclined to preserve the segregation practices that had already taken root, they showed little intention of broadening or fully institutionalizing the system.

Three competing philosophies of race relations emerged in the region, each challenging the extreme racism promoted by some Redeemers: liberalism, conservatism, and radicalism. The liberal approach condemned the stigma of segregation and criticized the hypocrisy of a government that professes freedom and equality while denying both based on race. However, this philosophy, originating in the North, failed to gain significant support among Southern whites or Blacks.

The conservative philosophy, by contrast, attracted wide support and was implemented in various contexts over a considerable period of time. Conservatives blamed liberals for pushing Blacks ahead of their proper station in life and placing blacks in positions they were unprepared to fill, a circumstance that had allegedly contributed to their downfall. They warned blacks that some Redeemers were not satisfied with having decimated Reconstruction and were prepared to wage an aggressive war against blacks throughout the South. With some success, the conservatives reached out to Black American voters, reminding them that they had something to lose as well as gain and that the liberals’ preoccupation with political and economic equality presented the danger of losing all that blacks had so far gained.

The radical philosophy offered, for many Black Americans, the most promise. It was predicated on a searing critique of large corporations, particularly railroads, and the wealthy elite in the North and South. The radicals of the late nineteenth century, who later formed the Populist Party, viewed the privileged classes as conspiring to keep poor whites and blacks locked into a subordinate political and economic position. For many Black American voters, the Populist approach was preferable to the paternalism of liberals. Populists preached an “equalitarianism of want and poverty, the kinship of a common grievance, and a common oppressor.” As described by Tom Watson, a prominent Populist leader, in a speech advocating a union between black and white farmers: “You are kept apart that you may be separately fleeced of your earnings. You are made to hate each other because upon that hatred is rested the keystone of the arch of financial despotism that enslaves you both. You are deceived and blinded that you may not see how this race antagonism perpetuates a monetary system which beggars both.”

In an effort to demonstrate their commitment to a genuinely multiracial, working-class movement against white elites, the Populists made strides toward racial integration, a symbol of their commitment to class-based unity. Black Americans throughout the South responded with great hope and enthusiasm, eager to be true partners in a struggle for social justice. According to Woodward, “It is altogether probable that during the brief Populist upheaval in the nineties Negroes and native whites achieved a greater comity of mind and harmony of political purpose than ever before or since in the South.”

The Populists faced significant obstacles in forging the alliance they sought, as racial prejudice was most deeply entrenched among the very white populations they targeted—the economically disadvantaged lower classes. Despite these challenges, the Populist movement initially achieved remarkable success in the South, driven by widespread discontent sparked by the severe agrarian depression of the 1880s and 1890s. The Populists directly challenged the conservatives, who were seen as the party of privilege, and secured a series of stunning political victories across the region. Alarmed by the Populists' success and the emerging alliance between poor and working-class whites and African Americans, the conservatives rallied under the banner of white supremacy. They resorted to the same tactics used during their campaign for Redemption, including fraud, intimidation, bribery, and terror.

Segregation laws were proposed as part of a deliberate effort to drive a wedge between poor whites and Blacks. These discriminatory barriers were designed to encourage lower-class whites to retain a sense of superiority over blacks, making it far less likely that they would sustain interracial political alliances aimed at toppling the white elite. The laws were, in effect, another racial bribe. As William Julius Wilson has noted, “As long as poor whites directed their hatred and frustration against the black competitor, the planters were relieved of class hostility directed against them.” In order to overcome the well-founded suspicions of poor and illiterate whites that they, as well as blacks, were in danger of losing the right to vote, the leaders of the movement pursued an aggressive campaign of white supremacy in every state prior to black disenfranchisement.

The agricultural depression, taken together with a series of failed reforms and broken political promises, had pyramided to a climax of social tensions. Dominant whites concluded that it was in their political and economic interest to scapegoat blacks, and “permission to hate” came from sources that had formerly denied it, including Northern liberals eager to reconcile with the South, Southern conservatives who had once promised blacks protection from racial extremism, and Populists, who cast aside their dark-skinned allies when the partnership fell under siege.

History, again, repeated itself. Just as the white elite had successfully driven a wedge between poor whites and blacks following Bacon’s Rebellion by creating the institution of black slavery, another racial caste system was emerging nearly two centuries later, in part due to efforts by white elites to decimate a multiracial alliance of poor people. By the turn of the twentieth century, every state in the South had laws on the books that disenfranchised blacks and discriminated against them in virtually every sphere of life, lending sanction to a racial ostracism that extended to schools, churches, housing, jobs, restrooms, hotels, restaurants, hospitals, orphanages, prisons, funeral homes, morgues, and cemeteries. Politicians competed with each other by proposing and passing ever more stringent, oppressive, and downright ridiculous legislation (such as laws specifically prohibiting blacks and whites from playing chess together). The public symbols and constant reminders of black subjugation were supported by whites across the political spectrum, though the plight of poor whites remained largely unchanged. For them, the racial bribe was primarily psychological.

The new racial order, known as Jim Crow, was regarded as the “final settlement,” the “return to sanity,” and “the permanent system.” Of course, the earlier system of racialized social control—slavery—had also been regarded as final, sane, and permanent by its supporters. Like the earlier system, Jim Crow seemed “natural,” and it became difficult to remember that alternative paths were not only available at one time but nearly embraced.

Scholars have long debated the beginning and end of Reconstruction, as well as the precise moment when Jim Crow ended and the Civil Rights Movement, or “Second Reconstruction,” began. Reconstruction is commonly described as stretching from 1863, when the North freed the slaves, to 1877, when federal troops withdrew from the South and the North abandoned its commitment to the freed people. The timeline for the end of Jim Crow, however, is less clear.

The general public often traces the demise of Jim Crow to Brown v. Board of Education, but signs of its decline were evident years before. By 1945, a growing number of Northern whites had concluded that the Jim Crow system needed modification, if not outright dismantling. This shift in perspective was influenced by several factors, including the increased political power of blacks due to migration to the North, the growing influence of the NAACP and its successful legal battles against Jim Crow laws, and the impact of World War II. The contradiction between the United States' stance against the Third Reich's crimes and the persistent racial caste system was becoming increasingly embarrassing, damaging the nation’s credibility as a leader of the "free world." There was also concern that without greater equality for African Americans, blacks might become susceptible to communist influence, given Russia's commitment to racial and economic equality. Gunnar Myrdal’s influential book, The American Dilemma, made a passionate plea for integration, arguing that the contradiction between the “American Creed” of freedom and equality and the treatment of African Americans was not only immoral and unjust but also contrary to the nation’s economic and foreign-policy interests.

The Supreme Court seemed to agree. In 1944, Smith v. Allwright ended the use of all-white primary elections. In 1946, the Court ruled that state laws requiring segregation on interstate buses were unconstitutional. Two years later, the Court voided real estate agreements that discriminated based on race, and in 1949, it declared that Texas’s segregated law school for blacks was inherently unequal compared to its white counterpart. In 1950, McLaurin v. Oklahoma required the desegregation of Oklahoma’s law school. Even before Brown, the Supreme Court had begun to set in motion a significant pattern of desegregation.

Brown v. Board of Education was unique in that it signaled the end of “home rule” in the South concerning racial affairs. Earlier decisions had chipped away at the “separate but equal” doctrine, yet Jim Crow had adapted, and many Southerners remained confident in its survival. Brown threatened not only to abolish segregation in public schools but also, by implication, to challenge the entire system of legalized discrimination in the South. After more than fifty years of near-total deference to Southern states and noninterference in their racial affairs, Brown suggested a reversal in course.

This prompted a wave of outrage and defiance in the South, reminiscent of the reaction to emancipation and Reconstruction. Southern white opposition to desegregation quickly escalated into a vicious backlash. In Congress, North Carolina Senator Sam Ervin Jr. drafted a racist polemic, “the Southern Manifesto,” which vowed to fight to maintain Jim Crow by all legal means. Ervin secured the support of 101 out of 128 members of Congress from the eleven original Confederate states.

A fresh wave of white terror targeted those supporting the dismantling of Jim Crow. White Citizens’ Councils, primarily composed of middle- to upper-middle-class whites, emerged in almost every Southern city and town. In response to the early steps of Reconstruction, Southern legislatures passed nearly fifty new Jim Crow laws in the years following Brown v. Board. Resistance turned violent: the Ku Klux Klan reasserted itself, committing acts of terror including castrations, killings, and bombings. NAACP leaders were beaten, pistol-whipped, and shot. Desegregation efforts in the South stalled; in 1958, thirteen school systems were desegregated, but by 1960, only seventeen.

Without a significant grassroots movement challenging the racial caste system, Jim Crow might have persisted. However, in the 1950s, the Civil Rights Movement gained momentum, inspired by Supreme Court decisions and a shifting political environment. Civil rights leaders, activists, and progressive clergy launched boycotts, marches, and sit-ins against Jim Crow. They faced fire hoses, police dogs, bombings, and beatings. Federal troops were once again sent to the South to protect blacks exercising their civil rights, and the violent reaction from white racists shocked the North.

One defining feature of the Civil Rights Movement was its commitment to nonviolent protest, inspired by the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi and led by figures such as Martin Luther King Jr. Despite the peaceful nature of these protests, they were often met with hostility and violence from white authorities and civilians alike. Sit-ins, marches, and boycotts were frequently described as "disruptive" and "provocative," and participants were often accused of inciting unrest.

For example, during the 1963 Birmingham campaign, peaceful demonstrators, including children, were met with brutal force by police, who used fire hoses and attack dogs to disperse the crowds. These images shocked the nation and the world, but they also reinforced the perception among many white Americans that civil rights activists were deliberately provoking violence. This narrative was used to justify harsh responses to the protests and to delegitimize the movement's demands for justice.

The passage of key civil rights legislation, such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, was a monumental achievement for the movement. However, these legislative victories also sparked a significant backlash from those who saw them as an overreach of federal power and a threat to states' rights and individual liberties. Many white Americans viewed these laws as an imposition on their way of life and reacted with anger and resentment.

In the South, the backlash was particularly fierce, with politicians and citizens alike vowing to resist integration and the enforcement of civil rights laws. This resistance often manifested in the form of "massive resistance" campaigns, where states and localities implemented various tactics to undermine federal mandates. For example, following the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which declared racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional, many Southern states enacted laws and policies designed to circumvent the ruling. White Citizens' Councils, composed of prominent community members, worked to maintain segregation and prevent the implementation of civil rights measures, often using economic and social pressure to intimidate those who supported integration.

The leaders of the Civil Rights Movement were often portrayed negatively by their opponents, who sought to discredit them and undermine their efforts. Martin Luther King Jr., despite his unwavering commitment to nonviolence, was frequently labeled a troublemaker and an agitator. The FBI, under the direction of J. Edgar Hoover, engaged in a campaign of surveillance and harassment against King, seeking to discredit him as a communist sympathizer and an immoral figure.

Similarly, more militant figures within the movement, such as Malcolm X and the leaders of the Black Panther Party, were depicted as dangerous radicals who posed a threat to national security. Malcolm X's calls for Black self-defense and his critiques of white supremacy were often taken out of context and used to paint him as an advocate for violence. The Black Panther Party, which was founded to protect Black communities from police brutality, was portrayed by the media and the government as a violent, anti-white organization, despite its focus on community service and self-defense.

These negative portrayals of civil rights leaders and activists contributed to the broader perception of the movement as aggressive and dangerous. This perception was used to justify the repression of civil rights efforts and to maintain the racial status quo.

Immediately after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Lyndon Johnson officially declared a War on Poverty, and then immediately following the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Lyndon Johnson officially declared the War on Crime.

The federal government provided initial funding for Johnson’s war on crime, supporting experimental programs in major cities such as Los Angeles, New York, St. Louis, and Baltimore—places identified as vulnerable to unrest. The goal was to equip these urban police departments with riot-control training, professionalization methods, and surplus military equipment, ensuring they would be ready to respond effectively if and when social unrest occurred.

However, the choice to prioritize punitive measures and crime control programs over community action initiatives as part of the War on Poverty did not stop the wave of protests that persisted each summer during Johnson's presidency. On the contrary, the protests grew increasingly disruptive, leading to more civilian deaths, the deployment of additional National Guardsmen, and, in the case of Detroit and cities like Washington, D.C., Chicago, and Baltimore during the Martin Luther King Protests, the involvement of federal troops.

A month after the King Protests subsided, Johnson signed the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act into law, his last significant piece of domestic legislation. This law expanded earlier programs from 1965 to 1968, which had mostly benefited larger cities.

With the passage of the Safe Streets Act, the Department of Justice established a new grant-making agency, the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration. This agency extended the distribution of surplus military equipment—not only to large cities but also to mid-sized cities, smaller towns, and rural areas. These areas began receiving tear gas, riot helmets, batons, bulletproof vests, and helicopters—equipment originally used in Vietnam and interventions in Latin America and the Caribbean. This period marked the beginning of the militarization of urban policing, elements of which have become commonplace today.

The continued and escalating protests following the enactment of this legislation demonstrate that the communities of color targeted by these new crime control measures did not welcome them. As everyday life became increasingly policed by a militarized force, residents in smaller cities began to resist, leading to a peak in rebellions during the late 1960s and early 1970s, contrary to the common belief that the unrest was confined to an earlier period.

During this time, federal funding for local police departments increased by 2,900%.

In 1967, President Johnson remarked, "The fact of the matter, however, is that law and order have broken down in Detroit, Michigan. I know that, with few exceptions, the people of Detroit, and the people of New York, and the people of Harlem, and of all of our American cities, however troubled they may be, deplore and condemn these criminal acts. Riots, looting, and public disorder will just not be tolerated."

Johnson's approach to addressing collective violence began in Harlem in 1964, following an incident of police brutality—the killing of a Black child—that sparked unrest. Residents of Harlem, like those in countless other cities, were rebelling against systemic exclusion, mass unemployment, slum landlords, and deteriorating housing projects infested with roaches and rats. They demanded equal educational opportunities and stronger school systems in their communities, echoing socio-economic demands still heard today. Yet, rather than acknowledging these root causes and recognizing that the protesters shared many of the same grievances as mainstream civil rights organizations, Johnson dismissed the Harlem uprising as criminal, senseless, and meaningless. "It has nothing to do with civil rights," he declared.

By dismissing these protests as criminal and meaningless, rather than probing the deeper conditions that drive people to feel their only option is to throw a Molotov cocktail or a rock at a police officer, Johnson framed the issue in a way that positioned increased policing as the sole solution—ironically, the very force that sparked the collective violence in the first place.

The term "riot" traps us in a cycle where, instead of addressing the root causes, we continue to rely on punitive measures, law enforcement, social control, and surveillance in targeted communities. This approach guarantees the perpetuation of both police violence and the violent responses it provokes within these communities. The use of the word "riot" is deliberate, and it's telling that it’s never applied to acts of white vigilantism.

The effects of the civil rights revolution were undeniable within five years. Between 1964 and 1969, the percentage of registered African American voters in the South soared dramatically. Black children could now access department stores, restaurants, water fountains, and amusement parks that had previously been off-limits. Miscegenation laws were declared unconstitutional, and interracial marriage rates increased.

While progress in political and social realms was evident, civil rights activists grew concerned that, without significant economic reforms, most blacks would remain in poverty. At the peak of the Civil Rights Movement, activists began focusing on economic issues, arguing that socioeconomic inequality compounded racial discrimination. This shift led to major protests for economic justice. The March on Washington for Jobs and Economic Freedom in August 1963 was a notable demonstration. The wave of activism on economic justice helped direct President Kennedy’s attention to poverty and black unemployment. By the summer of 1963, Kennedy had made eradicating poverty a key legislative goal. Following Kennedy’s assassination, President Lyndon Johnson passionately embraced the anti-poverty agenda, calling for an “unconditional war on poverty” and proposing the Economic Opportunities Bill of 1964.

The focus on economic justice aligned the Civil Rights Movement with the political goals of poor and working-class whites, who also sought economic reforms. As the movement evolved into a “Poor People’s Movement,” it promised to address both black and white poverty, potentially creating a multiracial coalition for economic justice. Martin Luther King Jr. and other leaders sought to build coalitions across racial lines, advocating for a radical restructuring of society to address the needs of both black and white poor. Just before his assassination, King envisioned a massive demonstration in Washington, D.C., uniting various disadvantaged groups to demand jobs and income. In a 1968 speech, King acknowledged progress but insisted that true economic justice required a transformation of the nation.

With the success of the Civil Rights Movement and the Poor People’s Movement, it became clear that a major disruption in the nation’s racial equilibrium had occurred. Yet, this period of progress was brief. Conservative whites began to seek a new racial order, one that would be formally race-neutral and conform to the era’s constraints. As with the transition from slavery to Jim Crow, white elites sought to define a new racial order without explicitly invoking race. They succeeded in installing a new racial caste system by demanding “law and order” instead of “segregation forever.”

In response to the social unrest of the 1960s, the Kerner Commission was established to identify the root causes of the turmoil. However, rather than addressing these causes, the federal government chose to arm police officers with surplus military weapons from the Vietnam War. This decision represents a significant missed opportunity, casting a shadow over much of the subsequent discussion. President Johnson created the Kerner Commission during the 1967 Detroit Rebellion, partly to appear as though he was taking decisive action.

The Kerner Commission argued that if the federal government genuinely wanted to prevent future uprisings and address their underlying causes, it needed to go far beyond the War on Poverty programs. Influenced by Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s arguments, Johnson and other officials believed that the root cause of Black poverty was behavioral, viewing it as a pathological issue. Consequently, they thought the War on Poverty could be resolved relatively cheaply with programs that, in the words of Johnson’s Attorney General Ramsey Clark, would "help the disadvantaged help themselves." Job training and remedial education programs became the centerpiece of this effort.

However, the Kerner Commission recognized that while the War on Poverty sounded promising, it lacked the structural transformation necessary to address deeper issues. The Commission recommended a plan akin to the Marshall Plan for American cities, involving massive investments in long-term job creation, improved housing, healthcare, and expanded educational opportunities for low-income Americans of color. The Commission essentially argued that preventing violent protests required investing in the cities themselves.

Senator Edward Brooke, the vice chairman of the Commission, expressed deep disappointment with the federal government’s failure to implement the bipartisan recommendations. He stated, "We are not moving fast enough, or far enough. We are not convincing the people in the slums that our government truly wants to help them. We have not adopted an affirmative national policy of interest and concern."

Ultimately, the recommendations that were adopted from the Kerner Commission were those that reinforced the police measures previously proposed by the Crime Commission. The transformative ideas about societal change were completely ignored. When the report was released, President Johnson refused to comment, deeming the recommendations too radical. The federal government never embraced the transformative vision proposed by the Kerner Commission—a vision of community empowerment and public safety that extended beyond relying solely on police to address the material consequences of poverty and inequality.

While the Kerner Commission had its flaws, it raises an important question: What would the United States look like today if policymakers had invested the resources in low-income communities of color that the Commission called for? Instead, the federal government chose to invest in increased policing, surveillance, and incarceration.

After the release of the Kerner Commission Report in 1968, which highlighted the profound racial and economic inequalities in the United States, there was a brief moment of national reflection. The report called for substantial investments in housing, education, and employment opportunities for Black Americans and other marginalized communities. However, instead of pursuing these social and economic reforms, the U.S. government focused on law enforcement and punitive measures. This shift not only laid the groundwork for the expansion of the criminal justice system and the rise of mass incarceration but also entrenched and exacerbated institutional racism in the country.

In the years following the Kerner Commission, the United States saw an increasing emphasis on "law and order" as the primary response to social unrest and rising crime rates. Politicians from both major parties began championing tougher crime policies, framing them as necessary to maintain societal order. This approach was evident in President Richard Nixon’s declaration of the "War on Drugs" in the early 1970s, marking a significant escalation in federal involvement in criminal justice. The War on Drugs disproportionately targeted Black and Latino communities, framing drug addiction as a criminal issue rather than a public health crisis. This resulted in harsher penalties for drug offenses and a significant increase in the incarceration rates of people of color, reinforcing racial disparities in the justice system.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the trend toward punitive policies accelerated, deepening the institutionalization of racism. Under President Ronald Reagan, the War on Drugs intensified, with mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses and expanded federal funding for law enforcement, disproportionately impacting Black and Latino communities. The crack cocaine epidemic, largely affecting urban Black communities, was met with far harsher legal responses than powder cocaine, more commonly used by white individuals. The shift from “community policing” to a more militarized form of law enforcement began in 1981, with the passage of the Military Cooperation with Law Enforcement Act, under President Ronald Reagan. This act marked a significant turning point by encouraging the military to collaborate with local, state, and federal police agencies. It granted law enforcement access to military resources such as bases, intelligence, research, weaponry, and equipment for the purpose of drug interdiction. This legislation created a major exception to the Posse Comitatus Act, a law dating back to the Civil War that restricted the use of the military in civilian policing. By eroding this long-standing barrier, the act laid the groundwork for a closer relationship between the military and domestic law enforcement. Following this, Reagan's National Security Decision Directive declared illegal drugs a direct threat to U.S. national security. This declaration not only escalated the "War on Drugs" but also provided a rationale for further cooperation between local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies. The fusion of military and police resources gained momentum as part of a broader strategy to combat drug trafficking, blurring the lines between domestic policing and military operations.

In the years that followed, President Bill Clinton embraced and expanded these policies, further institutionalizing racial disparities, increasing police numbers, expanding the use of the death penalty, and incentivizing states to build more prisons.. Under Clinton's administration, the 1994 Crime Bill introduced additional measures that continued to militarize the police. The bill included provisions that funneled military-grade equipment, such as armored vehicles and high-powered firearms, to police departments across the country. It also increased funding for law enforcement and implemented programs that further integrated military tactics into police training. It also included "three strikes" laws, which mandated life sentences for individuals convicted of three or more serious crimes, disproportionately affected people of color, further solidifying racial biases within the criminal justice system.

This focus on law enforcement and punitive measures, rather than addressing the underlying social and economic conditions identified by the Kerner Commission, directly contributed to the mass incarceration crisis and the deepening of institutional racism in the United States. By the end of the 20th century, the U.S. had the highest incarceration rate in the world, with millions of people, predominantly from marginalized communities, ensnared in the criminal justice system. The impact of mass incarceration has been catastrophic for communities of color, leading to the breakdown of families, the disenfranchisement of millions of citizens, and the perpetuation of poverty and racial inequality. The criminal justice system became a key mechanism for enforcing and sustaining racial discrimination, further marginalizing Black and Latino populations.

In summary, the failure to act on the Kerner Commission's recommendations for social reform, coupled with the subsequent focus on punitive law enforcement policies, not only led to the rise of mass incarceration but also entrenched institutional racism. This shift not only failed to address the root causes of urban unrest and crime but also exacerbated the very issues of racial and economic inequality that the Commission sought to remedy. The legacy of these decisions continues to shape American society, as the country grapples with the consequences of a criminal justice system that prioritizes punishment over rehabilitation and social investment while perpetuating racial biases and inequalities.

The success of "law and order" rhetoric among working-class whites, coupled with deep-seated resentment of racial reforms, especially in the South, led conservative Republican strategists to believe that a "new majority" could be built for the Republican Party. This majority would consist of the traditional Republican base, the white South, and a significant portion of the Catholic, blue-collar vote in major cities. Some conservative political strategists acknowledged that appealing to racial fears and antagonisms was central to this strategy, though it needed to be done subtly. H.R. Haldeman, one of Nixon’s key advisers, recalled that Nixon intentionally pursued a Southern, race-based strategy: "He [President Nixon] emphasized that you have to face the fact that the whole problem is really the blacks. The key is to devise a system that recognizes this while not appearing to." Similarly, John Ehrlichman, special counsel to the president, described the Nixon administration’s 1968 campaign strategy as explicitly targeting racist sentiments: "We’ll go after the racists." According to Ehrlichman, "that subliminal appeal to the anti-black voter was always present in Nixon’s statements and speeches."

Republican strategist Kevin Phillips is often credited with crafting one of the most influential arguments for a race-based strategy to secure Republican dominance in the South. In his 1969 book, The Emerging Republican Majority, Phillips argued that Nixon's successful presidential campaign could pave the way for a long-term political realignment if Republicans continued to campaign using racially coded, anti-Black rhetoric. He asserted that Southern white Democrats, who felt alienated by their party's support for civil rights measures like desegregation and busing, could be easily persuaded to switch parties if their racial resentments were effectively stoked.

The strategy of exploiting the racism and vulnerabilities of working-class whites had successfully defeated the Populists at the turn of the century, and a growing number of conservatives believed that this tactic, though more subtly executed, should be employed once again.

Thus, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, two schools of thought were presented to the general public regarding race, poverty, and the social order. Conservatives argued that poverty was caused not by structural factors related to race and class but by culture—particularly Black culture. This view received support from Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s now infamous report on the Black family, which attributed Black poverty to a Black “subculture” and the “tangle of pathology” that characterized it. As described by sociologist Katherine Beckett, “The (alleged) misbehaviors of the poor were transformed from adaptations to poverty that had the unfortunate effect of reproducing it into character failings that accounted for poverty in the first place.” The “social pathologies” of the poor, particularly street crime, illegal drug use, and delinquency, were redefined by conservatives as being caused by overly generous relief arrangements. Black “welfare cheats” and their dangerous offspring emerged for the first time in political discourse and media imagery.

Liberals, by contrast, insisted that social reforms such as the War on Poverty and civil rights legislation would address the “root causes” of criminal behavior and stressed the social conditions that predictably generate crime. Lyndon Johnson, for example, argued during his 1964 presidential campaign against Barry Goldwater that anti-poverty programs were, in effect, anti-crime programs: “There is something mighty wrong when a candidate for the highest office bemoans violence in the streets but votes against the War on Poverty, votes against the Civil Rights Act and votes against major educational bills that come before him as a legislator.” Competing images of the poor as “deserving” and “undeserving” became central components of the debate. Ultimately, the racialized nature of this imagery became a crucial resource for conservatives, who succeeded in using law and order rhetoric to mobilize the resentment of white working-class voters, many of whom felt threatened by the sudden progress of Blacks. As explained by Thomas and Mary Edsall in their book Chain Reaction, a disproportionate share of the costs of integration and racial equality had been borne by lower- and lower-middle-class whites, who were suddenly forced to compete on equal terms with Blacks for jobs and status and who lived in neighborhoods adjoining Black ghettos. Their children—not the children of wealthy whites—attended schools most likely to fall under busing orders. The affluent white liberals who were pressing the legal claims of Blacks and other minorities “were often sheltered, in their private lives, and largely immune to the costs of implementing minority claims.” This reality made it possible for conservatives to characterize the “liberal Democratic establishment” as out of touch with ordinary working people—thus resolving one of the central problems facing conservatives: how to persuade poor and working-class voters to join in alliance with corporate interests and the conservative elite.

By 1968, 81% of those responding to the Gallup Poll agreed with the statement that “law and order has broken down in this country,” and the majority blamed “Negroes who start riots” and “Communists.”

During the presidential election that year, both the Republican candidate, Richard Nixon, and the independent segregationist candidate, George Wallace, made “law and order” a central theme of their campaigns, and together they collected 57% of the vote. Nixon dedicated seventeen speeches solely to the topic of law and order, and one of his television ads explicitly called on voters to reject the lawlessness of civil rights activists and embrace “order” in the United States. The advertisement began with ominous music accompanied by flashing images of protestors, bloodied victims, and violence. A deep voice then said:

“It is time for an honest look at the problem of order in the United States. Dissent is a necessary ingredient of change, but in a system of government that provides for peaceful change, there is no cause that justifies resort to violence. Let us recognize that the first right of every American is to be free from domestic violence. So I pledge to you, we shall have order in the United States.”

At the end of the ad, a caption declared: “This time . . . vote like your whole world depended on it . . . NIXON.” Viewing his own campaign ad, Nixon reportedly remarked with glee that the ad “hits it right on the nose. It’s all about those damn Negro-Puerto Rican groups out there.” Race had once again become a powerful wedge, breaking up what had been a solid liberal coalition based on the economic interests of the poor and the working and lower-middle classes. In the 1968 election, race eclipsed class as the organizing principle of American politics, and by 1972, attitudes on racial issues rather than socioeconomic status were the primary determinant of voters’ political self-identification. The late 1960s and early 1970s marked a dramatic erosion in the belief among working-class whites that the condition of the poor, or those who fail to prosper, was the result of a faulty economic system that needed to be challenged. As the Edsalls explain, “the pitting of whites and blacks at the low end of the income distribution against each other intensified the view among many whites that the condition of life for the disadvantaged—particularly for disadvantaged blacks—is the responsibility of those afflicted, and not the responsibility of the larger society.” Just as race had been used at the turn of the century by Southern elites to rupture class solidarity at the bottom of the income ladder, race as a national issue had broken up the Democratic New Deal “bottom-up” coalition—a coalition dependent on substantial support from all voters, white and black, at or below the median income.

In an interview, Southern Strategy architect Kevin Phillips stated, “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House that followed, identified two primary enemies—the antiwar left and Black people. We understood that making it illegal to oppose the war or to be Black was unfeasible. Instead, by associating hippies with marijuana and Black individuals with heroin, and then heavily criminalizing both, we aimed to disrupt these communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their gatherings, and condemn them nightly on the evening news. Did we know we were fabricating the drug connections? Of course we did.”

But, the conservative revolution that took root within the Republican Party in the 1960s and 70s did not reach its full development until the election of 1980.

The decade leading up to Ronald Reagan’s presidency was marked by political and social upheaval. The Civil Rights Movement gave way to fierce debates over how to implement equality, particularly concerning busing and affirmative action, alongside intense political conflicts over the Vietnam War and Watergate. During this time, conservatives paid lip service to the goal of racial equality while actively opposing desegregation, busing, and civil rights enforcement. They frequently highlighted welfare issues, subtly framing the debate as a struggle between hardworking, blue-collar whites and poor Black people who were portrayed as unwilling to work. The underlying message to working-class whites was clear: their tax dollars were being used to fund special programs for Black people who, in their view, didn’t deserve them.

Amid this climate, Nixon declared a “war on drugs,” labeling illegal drugs as “public enemy number one.” However, this declaration was largely rhetorical, as it did not lead to significant changes in drug policy. A backlash against Black communities was evident, but there was no consensus on what the future racial and social order would look like in the aftermath of these turbulent times.

In his campaign for the presidency, Reagan mastered the “excision of the language of race from conservative public discourse” and thus built on the success of earlier conservatives who developed a strategy of exploiting racial hostility or resentment for political gain without making explicit reference to race. Condemning “welfare queens” and criminal “predators,” he rode into office with the strong support of disaffected whites—poor and working-class whites who felt betrayed by the Democratic Party’s embrace of the civil rights agenda. As one political insider explained, Reagan’s appeal derived primarily from the ideological fervor of the right wing of the Republican Party and “the emotional distress of those who fear or resent the Negro, and who expect Reagan somehow to keep him ‘in his place’ or at least echo their own anger and frustration.” To great effect, Reagan echoed white frustration in race-neutral terms through implicit racial appeals. His “colorblind” rhetoric on crime, welfare, taxes, and states’ rights was clearly understood by white (and Black) voters as having a racial dimension, though claims to that effect were impossible to prove. The absence of explicitly racist rhetoric afforded the racial nature of his coded appeals a certain plausible deniability. For example, when Reagan kicked off his presidential campaign at the annual Neshoba County Fair near Philadelphia, Mississippi—the town where three civil rights activists were murdered in 1964—he assured the crowd “I believe in states’ rights,” and promised to restore to states and local governments the power that properly belonged to them. His critics promptly alleged that he was signaling a racial message to his audience, suggesting allegiance with those who resisted desegregation, but Reagan firmly denied it, forcing liberals into a position that would soon become familiar—arguing that something is racist but finding it impossible to prove in the absence of explicitly racist language.

Crime and welfare were the major themes of Reagan’s campaign rhetoric. According to the Edsalls, one of Reagan’s favorite and most-often-repeated anecdotes was the story of a Chicago “welfare queen” with “80 names, 30 addresses, 12 Social Security cards,” whose “tax-free income alone is over $150,000.” The term “welfare queen” became a not-so-subtle code for “lazy, greedy, black ghetto mother.” The food stamp program, in turn, was a vehicle to let “some fellow ahead of you buy a T-bone steak,” while “you were standing in a checkout line with your package of hamburger.” These highly racialized appeals, targeted to poor and working-class whites, were nearly always accompanied by vehement promises to be tougher on crime and to enhance the federal government’s role in combating it. Reagan portrayed the criminal as “a staring face—a face that belongs to a frightening reality of our time: the face of the human predator.” Reagan’s racially coded rhetoric and strategy proved extraordinarily effective, as 22% of all Democrats defected from the party to vote for Reagan. The defection rate shot up to 34% among those Democrats who believed civil rights leaders were pushing “too fast.”

Once elected, Reagan’s promise to enhance the federal government’s role in fighting crime was complicated by the fact that fighting street crime has traditionally been the responsibility of state and local law enforcement. After a period of initial confusion and controversy regarding whether the FBI and the federal government should be involved in street crime, the Justice Department announced its intention to cut in half the number of specialists assigned to identify and prosecute white-collar criminals and to shift its attention to street crime, especially drug-law enforcement. In October 1982, President Reagan officially announced his administration’s War on Drugs. At the time he declared this new war, less than 2% of the American public viewed drugs as an important issue facing the nation.

This fact was no deterrent to Reagan, as the drug war from the outset had little to do with public concern about drugs and much to do with public concern about race. By waging a war on drug users and dealers, Reagan made good on his promise to crack down on the racially defined “others”—the undeserving.

Practically overnight, the budgets of federal law enforcement agencies skyrocketed. From 1980 to 1984, FBI anti-drug funding surged from $8 million to $95 million, while the Department of Defense's anti-drug allocations ballooned from $33 million in 1981 to $1.042 billion by 1991. During the same period, DEA anti-drug spending jumped from $86 million to over $1 billion, and FBI anti-drug allocations increased from $38 million to $181 million. In stark contrast, funding for agencies focused on drug treatment, prevention, and education was sharply reduced. The National Institute on Drug Abuse's budget, for instance, was slashed from $274 million to $57 million between 1981 and 1984, while anti-drug funds for the Department of Education were cut from $14 million to $3 million.

In the early 1980s, as the drug war was kicking off, inner-city communities were grappling with economic collapse. The blue-collar factory jobs that had been abundant in urban areas during the 1950s and 1960s had suddenly vanished. Before 1970, inner-city workers with relatively little formal education could find industrial employment close to home. However, globalization began to shift this dynamic. Manufacturing jobs were relocated by multinational corporations from American cities to countries with weaker labor protections, where workers earned a fraction of what was considered a fair wage in the United States. To compound the issue, dramatic technological advancements revolutionized the workplace, eliminating many of the jobs that less skilled workers once depended on for their survival. While highly educated workers benefited from the rapid pace of technological change and the increased use of computer-based technologies, blue-collar workers often found themselves displaced in the sudden transition from an industrial to a service economy.

The impact of globalization and deindustrialization was felt most acutely in Black inner-city communities. As William Julius Wilson describes in his book When Work Disappears, the overwhelming majority of African Americans in the 1970s lacked college educations and attended racially segregated, underfunded schools with limited resources. Those living in ghetto communities were particularly ill-equipped to adapt to the seismic changes occurring in the U.S. economy, leaving them isolated and jobless. One study indicates that as late as 1970, more than 70% of all Black workers in metropolitan areas held blue-collar jobs. However, by 1987, when the drug war was in full swing, industrial employment for Black men had plummeted to 28%.

The new manufacturing jobs that emerged during this period were generally located in the suburbs. This growing spatial mismatch had a profound impact on Black Americans trapped in ghettos. A study of urban Black fathers found that only 28% had access to an automobile, and this rate fell to 18% for those living in ghetto areas.

The decline in legitimate employment opportunities among inner-city residents increased the incentives to sell drugs—most notably crack cocaine. Crack is pharmacologically almost identical to powder cocaine, but it is converted into a form that can be vaporized and inhaled for a faster, more intense (though shorter) high using less of the drug, making it possible to sell small doses at more affordable prices. Crack hit the streets in 1985, a few years after Reagan’s drug war was announced, leading to a spike in violence as drug markets struggled to stabilize, and the anger and frustration associated with joblessness intensified. Joblessness and crack swept through inner cities precisely as a fierce backlash against the Civil Rights Movement was manifesting through the War on Drugs. The Reagan administration seized the opportunity to publicize crack cocaine in inner-city communities to build support for its new war.

In October 1985, the DEA sent Robert Stutman to serve as director of its New York City office, charging him with the responsibility of shoring up public support for the administration’s new war. Stutman developed a strategy to improve relations with the news media and sought to draw journalists’ attention to the spread of crack cocaine. As Stutman recounted years later:

"The agents would hear me give hundreds of presentations to the media as I attempted to call attention to the drug scourge. I wasted no time in pointing out the DEA's new accomplishments against the drug traffickers.... To convince Washington, I needed to make drugs a national issue and quickly. I began a lobbying effort and used the media. The media were only too willing to cooperate, because as far as the New York media was concerned, crack was the hottest combat reporting story to come along since the end of the Vietnam War."

The strategy proved successful. In June 1986, Newsweek declared crack to be the biggest story since Vietnam/Watergate, and in August of that year, Time magazine called crack "the issue of the year." Thousands of stories about the crack crisis flooded the airwaves and newsstands, all with a clear racial subtext. These articles typically featured Black "crack whores," "crack babies," and "gangbangers," reinforcing already prevalent racial stereotypes of Black women as irresponsible, selfish "welfare queens," and Black men as "predators"—portrayed as part of an inferior and criminal subculture. When two popular sports figures, Len Bias and Don Rogers, died of cocaine overdoses in June 1986, the media erroneously reported their deaths as being caused by crack, further fueling the media firestorm and the groundswell of political activity and public concern surrounding the new "demon drug," crack cocaine. This media bonanza continued into 1989, with ongoing claims that crack was an "epidemic," a "plague," "instantly addictive," and extraordinarily dangerous—claims that have since been proven false or highly misleading. Between October 1988 and October 1989, The Washington Post alone ran 1,565 stories about the "drug scourge." Richard Harwood, the *Post's* ombudsman, eventually admitted that the paper had lost "a proper sense of perspective" due to such a "hyperbole epidemic," stating that "politicians are doing a number on people's heads." Sociologists Craig Reinarman and Harry Levine later made a similar point, noting, "Crack was a godsend to the Right... It could not have appeared at a more politically opportune moment."

In September 1986, with the media frenzy at its peak, the House passed legislation that allocated $2 billion to the anti-drug crusade, required the participation of the military in narcotics control efforts, allowed the death penalty for some drug-related crimes, and authorized the admission of some illegally obtained evidence in drug trials. Later that month, the Senate proposed even tougher antidrug legislation, and shortly thereafter, the president signed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 into law.

Among other harsh penalties, the legislation included mandatory minimum sentences for cocaine distribution, with far more severe punishment for distributing crack—associated with Blacks—than powder cocaine, associated with Whites.

Few criticisms of the legislation were heard on its way to enactment. One senator argued that crack had become a scapegoat, distracting the public’s attention from the true causes of social ills, stating, “If we blame crime on crack, our politicians are off the hook. Forgotten are the failed schools, the malign welfare programs, the desolate neighborhoods, the wasted years. Only crack is to blame. One is tempted to think that if crack did not exist, someone somewhere would have received a federal grant to develop it.” However, critical voices were rare.

Congress revisited drug policy in 1988, resulting in even more punitive legislation that extended far beyond traditional criminal punishments by introducing new “civil penalties” for drug offenders. The new Anti-Drug Abuse Act authorized public housing authorities to evict any tenant who allowed any form of drug-related criminal activity to occur on or near public housing premises and eliminated many federal benefits, including student loans, for anyone convicted of a drug offense. The act also expanded the use of the death penalty for serious drug-related offenses and imposed new mandatory minimums, including a five-year mandatory minimum for simple possession of cocaine base—with no evidence of intent to sell. Remarkably, this penalty applied to first-time offenders. The severity of this punishment was unprecedented in the federal system, where until 1988, the maximum sentence for possession of any amount of any drug had been one year of imprisonment. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) were divided in their assessment of the new legislation—some believed the harsh penalties were necessary, while others were convinced that the laws were biased and harmful to African Americans. Ultimately, the legislation passed by an overwhelming margin—346 to 11, with six of the negative votes coming from the CBC.

The War on Drugs proved popular among key white voters, particularly those who remained resentful of Black progress, civil rights enforcement, and affirmative action. Beginning in the 1970s, researchers found that racial attitudes—not crime rates or the likelihood of victimization—were significant determinants of white support for “get tough on crime” and anti-welfare measures. Among whites, those expressing the highest degree of concern about crime also tended to oppose racial reform, and their punitive attitudes toward crime were largely unrelated to their likelihood of being victims. On average, whites were more punitive than Blacks, despite Blacks being far more likely to be victims of crime. Rural whites were often the most punitive, even though they were the least likely to be crime victims. The War on Drugs, cloaked in race-neutral language, provided whites opposed to racial reform a unique opportunity to express their hostility toward Blacks and Black progress without being exposed to accusations of racism.

Interestingly, at the end of Reagan’s presidency, drunk drivers were responsible for approximately 22,000 deaths annually, while overall alcohol-related deaths neared 100,000 per year. In contrast, there were no statistics at the time on the prevalence of crack, let alone crack-related deaths. In fact, the total number of deaths from all illegal drugs combined was lower than those caused by drunk drivers. The estimated number of deaths related to illegal drugs—including overdose, AIDS, and violence associated with the drug trade—was about 21,000 annually.

In response to the growing concern over drunk driving, most states enacted tougher laws, with many adopting mandatory sentencing. Typically, these laws impose two days in jail for a first offense and 10 days for a second offense. By comparison, possession of even a small amount of crack carries a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in federal prison.

It is notable that drunk drivers are predominantly white males—78% of those arrested for drunk driving in 1990, when new mandatory minimums were being implemented, were white men. Drunk drivers are typically charged with misdemeanors and often receive fines, license suspensions, or community service rather than harsh prison sentences. Although drunk driving presents a greater risk of causing death than the use or sale of illegal drugs, society’s response has generally focused on rehabilitation and keeping offenders functional within the community. This stark contrast in legal treatment reflects the racial disparities in how different offenses are punished.

Reagan’s successor, President George Bush Sr., did not hesitate to continue implicit racial appeals. He had learned from other conservative politicians that subtle negative references to race could mobilize poor and working-class whites who had once been loyal to the Democratic Party. Bush’s most famous racial appeal, the Willie Horton ad, featured a dark-skinned Black man, a convicted murderer who escaped while on a work furlough and then raped and murdered a white woman in her home. The ad blamed Bush’s opponent, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, for the death of the white woman because he had approved the furlough program, a policy that allowed incarcerated individuals temporary, unsupervised release from prison for specific periods, often for purposes such as visiting family, attending funerals, or preparing for reintegration into society. For months, the ad played repeatedly on network news stations and became the subject of incessant political commentary. Though controversial, the ad was stunningly effective; it destroyed Dukakis’s chances of ever becoming president.

Once in the Oval Office, Bush stayed on message, opposing affirmative action and aggressive civil rights enforcement, while embracing the drug war with great enthusiasm. In August 1989, President Bush characterized drug use as “the most pressing problem facing the nation."

Shortly thereafter, a New York Times/CBS News Poll reported that 64% of respondents—the highest percentage ever recorded—now believed that drugs were the most significant problem in the United States. This surge in public concern did not reflect a dramatic increase in illegal drug activity but was instead the result of a carefully orchestrated political campaign. Public concern about crime and drugs was only weakly correlated with actual crime rates but was highly influenced by political initiatives, campaigns, and partisan appeals.

The shift toward a general attitude of “toughness” on issues associated with communities of color began in the 1960s when the gains and goals of the Civil Rights Movement started to require real sacrifices from white Americans. Conservative politicians found they could mobilize white racial resentment by vowing to crack down on crime. By the late 1980s, however, it wasn’t just conservatives leading the get-tough movement; Democratic politicians and policymakers were also attempting to wrest control of the crime and drug issues from Republicans by advocating stricter anticrime and antidrug laws—all in an effort to win back the so-called “swing voters” who were defecting to the Republican Party. Somewhat ironically, these “new Democrats” were joined by virulent racists, most notably the Ku Klux Klan, which announced in 1990 that it intended to “join the battle against illegal drugs” by becoming the “eyes and ears of the police.” Progressives concerned about racial justice during this period were mostly silent about the War on Drugs, choosing instead to focus their energy on defending affirmative action and other perceived gains of the Civil Rights Movement.

In the early 1990s, resistance to the emergence of a new system of racialized social control collapsed across the political spectrum. A century earlier, a similar political dynamic had led to the birth of Jim Crow. In the 1890s, Populists buckled under the political pressure from the Redeemers, who successfully appealed to poor and working-class whites by proposing overtly racist and increasingly absurd Jim Crow laws. Now, a new racial caste system—mass incarceration—was taking hold, as politicians of every stripe competed to win the votes of poor and working-class whites, whose economic status was precarious at best, and who felt threatened by racial reforms. As before, former allies of African Americans—as much as conservatives—adopted a political strategy that required them to prove how “tough” they could be on “them,” the dark-skinned pariahs.

The results were immediate. As law enforcement budgets exploded, so did prison and jail populations. In 1991, the Sentencing Project reported that the number of people behind bars in the United States was unprecedented in world history, with one-fourth of young African American men now under the control of the criminal justice system. Despite the jaw-dropping impact of the “get tough” movement on the African American community, neither Democrats nor Republicans showed any inclination to slow the pace of incarceration.

To the contrary, in 1992, presidential candidate Bill Clinton vowed that he would never allow any Republican to be perceived as tougher on crime than he was. True to his word, just weeks before the critical New Hampshire primary, Clinton flew home to Arkansas to oversee the execution of Ricky Ray Rector, a mentally impaired Black man who had so little understanding of what was about to happen that he asked for the dessert from his last meal to be saved for him until the morning. After the execution, Clinton remarked, “I can be nicked a lot, but no one can say I’m soft on crime.”

Once elected, Clinton endorsed the idea of a federal “three strikes and you’re out” law, which he advocated in his 1994 State of the Union address to enthusiastic applause from both sides of the aisle. The $30 billion crime bill sent to President Clinton in August 1994 was hailed as a victory for the Democrats, who “were able to wrest the crime issue from the Republicans and make it their own.”

The bill created dozens of new federal capital crimes, mandated life sentences for certain three-time offenders, and authorized more than $16 billion for state prison grants and the expansion of state and local police forces. Far from resisting the emergence of the new caste system, Clinton escalated the drug war beyond what conservatives had imagined possible a decade earlier. As the Justice Policy Institute noted, “the Clinton Administration’s ‘tough on crime’ policies resulted in the largest increases in federal and state prison inmates of any president in American history.”

Clinton eventually moved beyond crime and capitulated to the conservative racial agenda on welfare. This move, like his “get tough” rhetoric and policies, was part of a grand strategy articulated by the “new Democrats” to appeal to the elusive white swing voters. In doing so, Clinton—more than any other president—helped create the current racial undercaste. He signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, which “ended welfare as we know it” and replaced it with a block grant to states called Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). TANF imposed a five-year lifetime limit on welfare assistance and included a permanent, lifetime ban on eligibility for welfare and food stamps for anyone convicted of a felony drug offense—including simple possession of marijuana.

Clinton didn’t stop there. Determined to prove how “tough” he could be on “them,” Clinton also made it easier for federally assisted public housing projects to exclude anyone with a criminal history—an extraordinarily harsh step in the midst of a drug war aimed at racial and ethnic minorities. In his announcement of the “One Strike and You’re Out” Initiative, Clinton explained: “From now on, the rule for residents who commit crime and peddle drugs should be one strike and you’re out.” The new rule promised to be “the toughest admission and eviction policy that HUD has implemented.” As a result, countless poor people, particularly racial minorities targeted by the drug war, found themselves without access to public housing, leaving many homeless—locked out not only from mainstream society but from their own homes.

The law and order perspective, first introduced during the peak of the Civil Rights Movement by rabid segregationists, had become nearly hegemonic two decades later. By the mid-1990s, no serious alternatives to the War on Drugs and the "get tough" movement were being considered in mainstream political discourse. Once again, in response to a major disruption in the prevailing racial order—this time the civil rights gains of the 1960s—a new system of racialized social control was created by exploiting the vulnerabilities and racial resentments of poor and working-class whites. By the turn of the 21st century, more than 2 million people were behind bars, and millions more were relegated to the margins of mainstream society, banished to a political and social space not unlike Jim Crow, where discrimination in employment, housing, and access to education was perfectly legal, and where they could be denied the right to vote. The system functioned almost automatically, and the prevailing racial meanings, identities, and ideologies seemed natural. Ninety percent of those admitted to prison for drug offenses in many states were Black or Latino, yet the mass incarceration of communities of color was explained in race-neutral terms, an adaptation to the needs and demands of the current political climate. Thus, the New Jim Crow was born.

Before the onset of what is often referred to as the New Jim Crow era, countries like Germany, Finland, and the United States had similar crime rates. However, the trajectories of their incarceration rates have diverged dramatically. In the U.S., the incarceration rate has quadrupled, while Germany's rate has remained stable, and Finland's has decreased by 60%. Over the span of less than 30 years, the prison population in the United States surged from approximately 300,000 to over 2 million, with drug convictions being the primary driver of this increase.

Today, the United States incarcerates more people than any other country in the world. This includes a higher number of Black prisoners than South Africa had at the height of apartheid. In Washington, D.C., a staggering 3 out of every 4 Black men can expect to serve time in prison. This statistic is not isolated to the nation’s capital; across Black communities in the United States, the numbers are similarly alarming. Studies suggest that up to 80% of Black men in these communities have a criminal record, subjecting them to legalized discrimination for the rest of their lives.

In some urban areas, more than half of young Black men are under some form of correctional control, whether it be incarceration, probation, or parole. This phenomenon cannot be explained by differences in criminal behavior. In fact, research shows that drug use and drug-selling activities are similar across racial lines. Some studies even indicate that white youth engage in drug use more frequently than Black youth. Despite this, if current trends persist, 1 in 3 African American men will serve time in prison during their lifetime.

In 2000, Human Rights Watch reported that in seven states, Black individuals made up 80-90% of all those imprisoned on drug charges. In at least 15 states, Black men were being admitted to prison for drug offenses at rates 20 to 60 times higher than white men. Nationwide, the incarceration rate for Black men convicted of drug offenses significantly exceeded that of their white counterparts. When the "War on Drugs" gained momentum in the mid-1980s, the number of Black individuals admitted to prison soared, nearly quadrupling within three years, and continued to rise steadily. By 2000, the incarceration rate for Black men was more than 26 times higher than it had been in 1983.

Despite the fact that the majority of illegal drug users and dealers in the U.S. are white, three-fourths of those imprisoned for drug offenses have been Black or Latino. This stark racial disparity highlights the profound impact that drug enforcement policies have had on communities of color.

Despite violent crime rates being at historical lows, incarceration rates in the U.S. continue to rise, with the Black community disproportionately affected. While overall crime has decreased significantly over the past few decades, policies such as the "War on Drugs" and mandatory minimum sentencing have contributed to the ongoing surge in prison populations. This trend is particularly stark for Black individuals, who are incarcerated at much higher rates than their white counterparts, even for non-violent offenses. The disconnect between declining crime rates and rising imprisonment highlights systemic racial disparities and the lasting effects of punitive criminal justice policies on communities of color.

The mass incarceration of Black men in the United States has created a racial hierarchy reminiscent of the Jim Crow era. A complex system of laws, policies, customs, and institutions operates to maintain the subordinate status of a group defined largely by race. This system severely restricts social mobility and economic opportunities for Black youth, effectively locking a significant portion of the population out of mainstream society and the economy.

The implications of this system are profound. It perpetuates cycles of poverty, limits access to education and employment, and undermines the fabric of Black communities. Social stigma and implicit biases against Black individuals further exacerbate these challenges, leading to harsher sentencing and discriminatory policing practices. As the number of incarcerated individuals continues to grow, so too does the social and economic divide between Black Americans and the rest of the population. This is not just a crisis of criminal justice; it is a crisis of racial and social justice, with consequences that extend far beyond the walls of America's prisons. The lasting effects of these disparities ripple through generations, reinforcing systemic inequality and denying entire communities the opportunity to thrive.

A survey conducted in 1995 posed the following question: "Would you close your eyes for a second, envision a criminal, and describe that person to me?" Remarkably, 95% of respondents pictured a Black drug user, while only 5% envisioned individuals from other racial groups. These results starkly contrast with the reality of drug crime in America. In 1995, Black individuals made up only 15% of drug users, a statistic that remains largely unchanged today. There is little reason to believe the results would differ significantly if police officers or prosecutors had been the respondents. Law enforcement officials, like the general population, have been influenced by the same racially charged media portrayals and societal biases.

Implicit bias plays a significant role in shaping the perceptions of law enforcement. Officers are often subconsciously predisposed to view Black individuals as more dangerous or criminal, leading to discriminatory practices such as racial profiling, disproportionately harsh sentencing, and the over-policing of Black communities. These biases are further reinforced by a criminal justice system that has historically marginalized people of color, exacerbating the racial disparities in arrest, prosecution, and incarceration rates.

Although Black people do not commit drug crimes at higher rates than white people, they are disproportionately more likely to be stopped, searched, arrested, and prosecuted for such offenses. This is evident in data from a study conducted in New Jersey, where Black motorists accounted for 45% of all traffic stops and 73% of all arrests, despite representing only 15% of drivers in the state. While radar-enforced stops were consistent with the percentage of minority drivers committing traffic violations, discretionary stops made by officers engaged in drug interdiction resulted in significantly higher stop rates for minorities. A subsequent investigation by the New Jersey Attorney General found that the bias extended even further during searches. Of all consent searches on the New Jersey Turnpike, 77% involved minority motorists.

Similarly, a study in Maryland found comparable results: Black drivers made up only 17% of motorists along a section of I-95 near Baltimore, yet they accounted for 70% of stops and searches. What makes this racial disparity even more alarming is that in both studies, white drivers were statistically more likely to be found carrying illegal drugs or contraband. In New Jersey, white drivers were nearly twice as likely as Black drivers to be in possession of illegal substances during stops.

This pattern of discriminatory policing has been documented across the country. In Florida, for instance, a reporter analyzed 148 hours of video footage, covering more than 1,000 highway stops by state troopers. While only 5% of drivers on the road were Black or Latino, over 80% of those stopped and searched were minorities. Similar research in Illinois, California, and other states has repeatedly demonstrated clear racial biases in traffic stops, searches, and arrests, particularly against Black and Latino drivers.

These studies expose a deeply ingrained racial bias within law enforcement, highlighting how Black and other minority communities are disproportionately targeted despite lower rates of contraband possession

Racist policing in America creates a self-fulfilling prophecy that reinforces harmful stereotypes and deepens systemic inequality. When police disproportionately arrest and convict Black individuals, especially for minor offenses, it perpetuates the view of Black people as inherently criminal. This mass incarceration removes Black men from their families, feeding into the stereotype of absent Black fathers. Upon release, Black men face numerous barriers to reintegrating into society. Discriminatory hiring practices, lack of access to educational opportunities, and systemic racism in housing policies prevent them from securing stable employment and housing, further entrenching the stereotype of laziness and irresponsibility. These interconnected racist systems—policing, the job market, housing discrimination, and more—trap Black men in cycles of marginalization. As a result, these systemic barriers perpetuate the very prejudices that lead to their criminalization in the first place, ensuring that the cycle of stigma, inequality, and disadvantage continues.

Without significant reform, the trend of mass incarceration threatens to entrench racial disparities even further, creating a permanent underclass within American society. The need for a comprehensive reevaluation of the policies and practices that have led to this crisis has never been more urgent.