Arkansas Prisoners Organize Against Unchecked Racism and the Coronavirus

The Cummins Unit, a penitentiary in southeastern Arkansas, opened in 1902. Designed as a prison for black men, its rigid hierarchy and system of unpaid labor have been likened to slavery. The population at Cummins, still overwhelmingly black, has been devastated by the coronavirus—the prison has the tenth-largest outbreak of COVID-19 in the country.Rachel Aviv joins Dorothy Wickenden to discuss what incarcerated men in Cummins told her about their study group, called the Think Tank; about black identity in America; how they have organized to demand adequate measures against the pandemic; and what they think about the protests following the killing of George Floyd.