So it was that, to the Negro, going to jail was no longer a disgrace but a badge of honor. The Revolution of the Negro not only attacked the external cause of his misery, but revealed him to himself. He was somebody. He had a sense of somebodiness. He was impatient to be free.

—MARTIN LUTHER KING JR., Why We Can’t Wait (1963)

At first, you were coons, darkies, colored, niggers, Negroes; then we became crime in the streets.

—AUDLEY “QUEEN MOTHER” MOORE, interview (1972)

They tell us that the prisons are overpopulated. But what if it were the population that were being over-imprisoned?

—MICHEL FOUCAULT, press conference (1971)