Shewit Zerai

Exploring History Final

5/26/2017

HIST B314
Topics in American History:
The (de)Incarceration of Black Women+Femmes at the Bedford Hills Prison Facility
Prof. Shewit Zerai
Fall 2017
Course Overview
This course is intended to interrogate the American prison-industrial complex and trace its
relationship with black women and femmes from the 1970s till the present, with a specific focus
on the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility located in Bedford Hills, NY. The course will be
guided with the following historical approaches and practices in mind:

1. Accessibility: intentionally assigning readings/films/sources that are easily accessible to

the public, videos that contain subtitles/transcripts, academic/theoretical work that centers
incarcerated folks and uses non-elitist language.
2. Transparent Authorship: the majority of sources are primary sources that come directly
from incarcerated women+femmes and give priority to their voices and experiences over
the academic/state narrative.
3. Disrupting State/Academic Narratives: identifying the narrative the state and academic
institutions propagate about the incarceration of black women and femmes and disrupting
these narratives by combating myths (ex: black women+femmes are less vulnerable than
black men to state violence) and acknowledging specific named and unnamed
incarcerated black women+femmes who have been intentionally erased as well as
collective movements within the carceral state.
4. Giving Weight to the Impossible/Prioritizing Fiction: placing the course in an intentional
framework that recognizes abolition and revolution as valid potentials/goals and delving
into an Afro-futuristic practice of re-imagining worlds and systems of the future and the
past outside of the current framework of white supremacy.

This course doesnt require any specific previous knowledge of the carceral system within the
U.S. or a history of black women and femmes in the U.S., however the students will be asked to
examine the socialization we have received through media, the state, schools, and personal
relationships as they relate to black women and femmes as well as incarceration.

Student Responsibilities

Attendance and Participation: Attendance isnt mandatory in the sense that your body doesnt
always have to be present for class. This course is working to acknowledge and break free of the
rigid binds and regulations of all institutions that are in service to the state, which includes the
academic institution we are currently at. In order to ensure personal commitment and growth
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within this class, as well as productive and inclusive discussion that invites everyone to be able
to speak and voice their ideals, all class sessions will be recorded, edited and transcripted so as to
be made available to the rest of the class. Students will then be able to add-in voice comments
for where they feel they have something to add or to record themselves having a separate, but
tangential conversation that engages with the class material. Students will also be welcome to,
and encouraged, to meet with me regularly outside of class hours so we can engage over the
material. Attendance will be measured by my own perception and the students perception of
their engagement with the material and movement towards a deeper understanding of the
carceral state and the black women and femmes who are affected by it, as well as our own
complicity. How a student participates will be left up to the student; if they wish to engage
verbally in person, if they wish to write short/long responses to the material/discussions, if they
wish to do recordings of themselves responding, ect. This class wants to ensure that all students
are able to participate in a way that makes them feel engaged and heard.

Completion of Assignments: This course will rely heavily on the testimonies and labor of black
women and femmes who are currently incarcerated as we will be reading their stories, poetry and
activism, for which they are rarely recognized for and even more rarely compensated. Given our
inherent complicity in the carceral state and the power imbalance and privilege that comes from
not being incarcerated, it is essential that all class assignments are geared towards giving back to
the women and femmes who have given so much of themselves. The assignments will be
available in a variety of mediums and the students will be required to meet with me in the
beginning of the semester to plan out their own coursework; however, they will be expected to
complete this coursework by the end of the semester or by the deadline they set for themselves
throughout the semester. This class wishes to posit assignments as both learning experiences for
the individual, but also using our academic and institutional privilege in order to change the
course of the world outside of our classroom and to amplify the voices of those who arent being
heard.

Honor Code/Respect: One of the most essential aspects of this courses integrity is citing the
sources and folks from which we get our historical knowledge as well as our frameworks and
ideas. It is just as important to cite the conversations, ideologies, and emotional work that we
absorb from our communities and individuals as it is to cite academics. This is part of an
intentional move to give credit to marginalized and often unrecognized folks who put a lot of
thought and labor into their practice and should be cited as a source for their work. This class
will also deal with a lot of heavy and controversial topics; respect in conversation is essential in
these moments. Respect does not mean tolerating hateful and bigoted opinions (including
unintentional ones), but rather understanding that everyone is at a different place in their lives
and come to the table with different experiences and motivations. As long as we can see a similar
end point, folks will have different strategies and methods for getting there and thats O.K. This
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class will recognize all of its members as non-disposable.

Accessibility: The college is committed to providing students with documented disabilities equal
access to all courses, materials and places. This course will respect and accommodate any
students needs while also recognizing that many folks do not have access to medical institutions
to document their disabilities/are not seen by the medical industrial complex to be disabled.
Therefore, all students can come to me and request any accommodations as they appear to be
necessary at any point in the semester.

Assignments and Course Evaluation

Attendance and Participation 10%
1
Outreach Assignment 1 10%
2
Outreach Assignment 2 10%
Short Story 10%
Prison Break Exercise 10%
Self-Evaluation 1 10%
Self-Evaluation 2 10%
Self-Evaluation 3 10%
Short Mixed Media Project 10%
Final Project 10%

*Course percentages can be redistributed depending on each students strengths and motivations
in order for the grade to accurately reflect the amount of labor the student puts into the course.
These assignments will not be due at any specific time during the semester (with the exception
of the self-evaluations and the Final Project), but rather the student can set out their own dates
that will be confirmed with me at the beginning of the semester.

Source Material
Most texts/source material for the class will be available on Moodle as a PDF, in the bookstore
for purchase and multiple copies available in the library.

Course Readings
Section One: Historical Context
Tuesday 9/5:
Introduction to the course and the materials
In-Class Screening of 13th (dir. Ava DuVernay)

1
Sofia Fenner, "Politics of the Modern Middle East and North Africa," (POLS B283 Course Syllabus, Bryn
Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Spring 2017).
2
ibid.
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Tuesday 9/12
Class discussion on 13th documentary
13th and the Invisibleness of Black Women by Samantha Master
(http://www.theroot.com/13th-and-the-invisibleness-of-black-women-1790857199)
Breea C. Willingham, Black Women's Prison Narratives and the Intersection of Race,
Gender, and Sexuality in US Prisons
Talitha L. LeFlouria, Chained in Silence: Black Women and Convict Labor in the New
South (prologue+introduction)
Sarah Haley, No Mercy Here: Gender, Punishment, and the Making of Jim Crow
Modernity (intro+Ch. 1)
Tuesday 9/19
Sarah Haley, No Mercy Here: Gender, Punishment, and the Making of Jim Crow
Modernity (Ch. 2 + Ch. 3)
African American Policy Forum, #SayHerName: Resisting Police Brutality Against Black
Women
(http://static1.squarespace.com/static/53f20d90e4b0b80451158d8c/t/560c068ee4b0af26f
72741df/1443628686535/AAPF_SMN_Brief_Full_singles-min.pdf)
Cynthia M. Blair, I've Got to Make My Livin': Black Women's Sex Work in
Turn-of-the-Century Chicago (p. 70-140)
Tuesday 9/26
Sarah Haley, No Mercy Here: Gender, Punishment, and the Making of Jim Crow
Modernity (Ch. 4, Ch. 5 + conclusion)
Dorothy E. Roberts, Prison, Foster Care, and the Systemic Punishment of Black Mothers

Section Two: Influential Actors/Moments

Tuesday 10/3
Rev. Joy Powell
Freejoypowell.com
Vikki Law, Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women (read
Unlikely Communities, Barriers to Basic Care and Mothers and Children)
Out of Class Screening: What I Want My Words to Do to You (dir. Madeleine Gavin,
Judith Katz, Gary Sunshine)

Tuesday 10/10
Sandra Bland
Vikki Law, Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women (read Sexual
Abuse and Education)
The Read podcast, Episode 125
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Sandra Bland Online Videos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7eFLOu0Ok8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOF3hwNcEM0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKXgzU9ONxs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwXGXVO6wNE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnDWUP7Y8Xo
Out of Class Screening: Born In Flames (dir. Lizzie Borden)

Tuesday 10/24
August Rebellion
DYKE, A Quarterly, No. 1: Dykes Behind Bars by Women Against Prison
(http://seesaw.typepad.com/dykeaquarterly/2010/09/dyke-a-quarterly-no-1-dykes-behind
-bars.html#more)
Vikki Law, Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women (read
Womens Work and Grievances, Lawsuits and the Power of the Media)
JB Nicholas, August Rebellion: New Yorks Forgotten Female Prison Riot
(https://www.villagevoice.com/2016/08/30/august-rebellion-new-yorks-forgotten-female-p
rison-riot/)

Tuesday 10/31
Poetry and Testimony
Hettie Jones, Aliens at the Border: Poems from the Writing Workshop at Bedford Hills
Correctional Facility
Paula C. Johnson, Inner Lives: Voices of African American Women in Prison
Bernadine Adams, Leonore Coons, Glenda Cooper, Clementine Corona, Susan Hallett,
Theresa Simmons, Susan Smith, Constance Walker and Ann McGovern, Voices from
Within: The Poetry of Women in Prison
Vikki Law, Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women (read
Breaking the Silence, Resistance Among Women in Immigrant Detention, and Some
Historical Background)

Section Three: Moments of De-Incarceration

Tuesday 11/7
Case Study on Mary Virginia Jones, Marissa Alexander

Tuesday 11/14
Case Study on Cece McDonald and Ashley Diamond
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Tuesday 11/28
Case Study on Assata Shakur and Angela Davis

Tuesday 12/5
Class Presentations on Final Project