state:
Louisiana
Local history:
Windows on Angola Prison
Sentenced to slavery, stuck in Jim Crow?
University of New Orleans
Exhibiting Partner:
Ogden Museum of Southern Art
925 Camp Street New Orleans, LA 70130-3907
April 6, 2017May 1, 2017

States of Incarceration is now at the Levine Museum in Charlotte, NC

States of Incarceration is extended in NC! September 23, 2023 - January 31, 2023 at the Levine Museum of the New South in Charlotte, NC!

401 S Tryon St, Charlotte, NC 28202

go to www.museumofthenewsouth.org for more information.

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Louisiana: Windows on Angola Prison
Sentenced to slavery, stuck in Jim Crow?
University of New Orleans

Louisiana has the highest rate of incarceration in the world, with one in every 86 residents behind bars in 2012. The state also has one of the worst rates of racial disparity in sentencing and incarceration. A 2014 study by the American Civil Liberties Union found that black Louisianans are 23 times more likely than whites to be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for non-violent crime, and currently make up 91.4% of those prisoners. The Louisiana State Penitentiary, known as Angola, 140 miles northeast of New Orleans, is the largest maximum security prison in the United States. Located on an 18,000 acre former slave plantation, prisoners are still forced to labor in cotton and sugar cane fields. These video essays use historic images and documents to examine a range of issues related to work: from forced labor, surveillance and punishment to strategies prisoners have used to transgress restraints through writing, music, and working for reform.

Our Point of View

Created by a class of undergraduate and graduate students at the University of New Orleans, these video essays explore different forms of prison labor through historic images and primary source documents. As a group we examined the question of how the prison has worked in order to grapple with the current mass incarceration crisis and the future of criminal justice reform.

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Louisiana: Windows on Angola Prison    University of New Orleans
Sentenced to slavery, stuck in Jim Crow?
Louisiana: Windows on Angola Prison
Sentenced to slavery, stuck in Jim Crow?
  University of New Orleans

National Exhibition Venue    Ogden Museum of Southern Art

Public Dialogues and Events
| April 6 – May 1, 2017

See Full Exhibition & Events Schedule
“I have a friend of many years who became a police officer in chicago. I want to believe he can change the force. But I'm afraid it will change him. ” 
“I am a spychiatrist. If I can't find a patient and I am worried that they are too ill to help themselves, I have to call the police. When I do that, every time I have to worry if they are going to be arrested or killed because they are sick. ” 

Events:

Date: 
Tuesday, September 8, 2015
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Tuesday, September 29, 2015
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Thursday, October 29, 2015
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Saturday, November 14, 2015
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Thursday, December 3, 2015
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Tuesday, January 3, 2017
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Wednesday, January 4, 2017
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Thursday, January 5, 2017
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Friday, February 3, 2017
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Saturday, April 8, 2017
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Saturday, April 22, 2017

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