Wow! eBook
Coalition Building in the Anti-Death Penalty Movement: Privileged Morality, Race Realities
Author(s): Sandra Joy (Author)
- Publisher: Lexington Books (UK)
- Publication Date: 16 Jan. 2010
- Language: English
- Print length: 314 pages
- ISBN-10: 0739120387
- ISBN-13: 9780739120385
Book Description
By conducting interviews with white, black, and Latino anti-death penalty activists, this book examines the influence of race on the mobilization of activists and their approach toward abolition. The concepts of political opportunity, mobilizing structures, and framing provided by the political process model, are used to describe the complex manner in which moral opposition to the death penalty is shaped by the racial realities of the activists. Although racial tensions lie just below the surface, they nonetheless create real obstacles for the movement as it strives to build a racially diverse coalition of activists aimed at death penalty abolition.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“The death penalty is a scandal in itself, as the dedicated members of the movement to abolish it know so well. The racism of the death penalty is a scandal WITHIN that scandal, as Sandra Jones demonstrates with fierce dedication and honesty in this book. The product of years of intensive research, a thorough grasp of the social science literature, a deeply felt activism and sense of social justice, and an inspiring sense of humanity, Jones’s study both moves us deeply and enlightens us profoundly. This book will serve as the action manual for the anti-death penalty movement as it advances toward its long-delayed goal of abolition. Highly recommended for those who seek justice and mercy, for those who oppose racism, and for those who want to teach or learn about social movements in the contemporary United States.” –Howard Winant, director, Center for New Racial Studies, University of California Santa Barbara; author, The World Is A Ghetto: Race and Democracy Since World War II
“This book is no exercise in sterile, disinterested research. Jones’ investigation of one of the persistent difficulties faced by the movement to abolish America’s death penalty-the failure to mobilize the African American and Latino communities effectively-is driven by her passionate opposition to both capital punishment and racial injustice. As is always true of the best politically engaged scholarship, her conclusions have immediate value to those struggling in the trenches. Indeed, their value grows as capital punishment’s grip on public opinion wanes.” –Herbert Haines, SUNY-Cortland
“Jones has courageously taken one of the most-perhaps the most-painful internal problems of the movement and has calmly and meticulously examined it from the perspective of black and white participants. Bringing this issue out of private discussion and into the light of scholarly examination should make it possible for participants in the movement to evaluate and cope with this painful and destructive divide.” –Margaret Vandiver, University of Memphis
