What We're Reading and Listening to at the SSPM

By Amy Hufnagel

As we head into Black History Month in February, we wanted our reading and listening blog to reflect and celebrate Black achievement while also acknowledging where systemic racism continues in our justice system. Prison labor is one example of systemic racism. SSPM acknowledges that incarceration disproportionately and unfairly impacts Black people: they are 4 times more likely to be sent to jail than their white counterparts, more likely to serve time in prison for crimes they didn’t commit than their white counterparts; and, since the pandemic, Black Americans are going to jail more than white people. But even within these oppressive circumstances, Black voices rise up.

Last month, a historic lawsuit was filed in Alabama, alleging the state denies Black Alabamians parole to maintain its pool of workers. It brings renewed attention to the injustices of work policies and pay in US prisons. You can learn more here: https://truthout.org/articles/mcdonalds-kfc-burger-king-and-wendys-rely-on-alabama-prison-slavery

So for this installment of What We are Reading and Listening to at the SSPM, let’s dig into labor and workplace prison music.
​
In order to illuminate the "black box" that is modern prison labor, Michael Gibson-Light, a Professor of Sociology and Criminology in Denver, CO wrote and researched Orange-Collar Labor: Work and Inequality in Prison (2022). The book chronicles eighteen months of ethnographic observations within a medium-security prison as well as eighty-two interviews with currently incarcerated men and institutional staff members tasked with overseeing them.

“Pulling together these accounts, it paints a picture of daily labor on the inside, showing that not all prison jobs are the same, nor are all imprisoned workers treated equally.”

Through insightful first-hand perspectives and rich ethnographic detail, Orange-Collar Labor takes the reader inside the prison workplace and does this in a way that honors a diverse set of opinions and perspectives. Gibson-Light highlights moments of struggle and suffering, as well as hard work,
cooperation, resistance, and dignity in harsh environments. He documents what is so often obscured
and misconstrued to the general public.

With the plethora of digital content available these days, one expansive example of the obscured views and sounds within prison walls is the historic recording work of Alan Lomax. An ethno-musicologist Alan Lomax made recordings and these have been preserved by many organizations including the Library of Congress’ Archive of Folk Song and the LC’s American Folklife Center. A good place to start with such expansive options is a 2020 podcast called Been All Around the World. Specifically, take a listen to the music discussed in this episode “Making it in Hell:” Parchment Farm, 1933-1969.
https://archive.culturalequity.org/podcast

Parchment is a notoriously brutal and inhumane prison located in Mississippi. Lomax focused on Black “work songs” noting, “these songs are a vivid reminder of a system of social control and forced labor that has endured…” If you are ambitious, consider entering the word prison in the search bar to unlock hours of exploration and listening: https://archive.culturalequity.org/

Singing while doing hard labor makes perfect sense – but there was no singing in the 19th century marble quarries at Sing Sing Prison. Silence was strictly enforced.We imagine that the silence was deafening, but reading and listening is one way to take so many voices off mute.

Last year, renowned rapper and actor Common visited Sing Sing Correctional Facility, where he made music with men who participated in Carnegie Hall’s Musical Connections and performed for the facility’s general population. While not songs for working, this video shows that music continues to create meaning in people’s lives while incarcerated. Here is some modern music listening: https://bit.ly/45oC7Hs

Notes (about race and incarceration):
https://news.yale.edu/2023/04/19/pandemic-prison-populations-fell-proportion-black-prisoners-rose
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/03/black-people-more-likely-wrongfully-convicted/

More Reading:
https://news.uchicago.edu/story/us-prison-labor-programs-violate-fundamental-human-rights-new-report-finds
https://corpaccountabilitylab.org/calblog/2020/8/5/if-prison-workers-are-essential-we-should-treat-them-like-it-prison-labor-in-the-us-part-i
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/dec/24/us-prison-labor-workers-slavery-13th-
amendment-constitution
https://www.vera.org/news/justice-reform-101

More Listening:
Lomax talking about his work collecting songs in US prisons:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw2O8hdlpfQ&t=148s
A Review about the Lomax podcast https://flypaper.soundfly.com/discover/making-it-in-hell-the-
lomax-prison-song-recordings-from-parchman-farm-1933-69/
Dig deeper into the photo archive at the Library of Congress that developed along with the audio
recordings https://www.loc.gov/collections/lomax/about-this-collection/
More information about the Carnegie Hall’s music program at Sing Sing
https://www.carnegiehall.org/Education/Programs/Musical-Connections