Calvin Duncan, one of the finest inmate counsels to ever file a writ from the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, releases his autobiography today, July 8. The Lens is honored to publish an excerpt from this highly anticipated book, The Jailhouse Lawyer.
Calvin Duncan’s fight to free himself and others from a broken system — an interview by Bernard Smith.
On Juneteenth this year, one elder spoke of freedom still being unfinished. A young teacher reflected on what it means to shape free minds in a system that often feels bound. A mother talked about raising Black sons with love and fear in equal measure.
“This building’s architecture tells one story. But its human history tells another— and we need to confront both,” said Loyola Law School professor Andrea Armstrong
We can’t keep losing our brothers to the aftermath of injustice. We can’t call it “freedom” if we’re still dying from what they did to us.
Protesters carried handmade signs, chanted slogans, voiced concerns about mounting threats to democracy and billionaire-first politics, and — because it’s New Orleans — they blew bubbles.
Dancer Chipo Kandake along with New Orleans drumming legend Herlin Riley present a show on Saturday that tells the story of what we call American music, which, she says, started with the Black community.
In New Orleans, where incarceration touches nearly every block, jail population counts are much more than numbers – they represent families fractured, futures derailed, and communities under pressure.
Some of the loudest voices talking about problems that led to the jailbreak are the same ones who’ve supported underfunding and cuts to social services, education, and mental-health programs—drivers of crime and incarceration in the first place.
