Introduction Summary and Analysis

Author Michelle Alexander opens with the story of Jarvious Cotton, an African American man on parole from a felony drug conviction and therefore unable to exercise his voting rights. Jarvious, however, is not the first in his family denied complete democratic participation. His great-great-grandfather was slave, not considered a human being let alone an active member of the voting public. His great-grandfather was murdered by the Ku Klux Klan for attempting to vote. Ku Klux Klan intimidation prevented his grandfather from voting, and his father was denied voting due to literacy tests and poll taxes. Each generation in the Cotton family was blocked from voting.

Given the enormous progress in civil rights and the promise associated with the Obama presidency, the revelation that millions of African American men are currently trapped within a newfound racial caste system and stripped of their...