Analysis: Black Leaders Supported Clinton's Crime Bill
by YOLANDA YOUNG

The resentment that black social justice activists have been feeling towards Bill and Hillary Clinton's 1994 crime bill reached its apex at a Philadelphia campaign rally Thursday in which Bill Clinton was heckled and faced down signs like "CLINTON Crime Bill Destroyed Our Communities."

In February, Michelle Alexander, law professor and author of "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness" penned an essay titled, "Hillary Clinton doesn't deserve the Black vote."

The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 contained an expansion of the federal death penalty to include drug offenses, the "Three Strikes, You're Out" rule, and billions in funding for police, prisons, and states that made it harder for people to get parole (though Mr. Clinton neglected to mention this when he mentioned that most prisoners are incarcerated by the state).

But if Bill and Hillary Clinton were the pot, black politicians, activists, and pastors were the kettle. Their support of punitive measures actually paved the way for Clinton. It began with the man Ebony Magazine called the "front-line general in the war on drugs."