Of Greed and Glory

“Much like the work of Michelle Alexander and Douglas Blackmon, Plant’s narrative traces connections among slavery, the Jim Crow regime and modern mass incarceration.” - Los Angeles Times A ground-breaking, personal exploration of America’s obsession with continuing human bondage from the editor of the New York Times–bestselling Barracoon. Freedom and equality are the watchwords of American democracy. But like justice, freedom and equality are meaningless when there is no corresponding practical application of the ideals they represent. Physical, bodily liberty is fundamental to every American’s personal sovereignty. And yet, millions of Americans—including author Deborah Plant’s brother, whose life sentence at Angola Prison reveals a shocking current parallel to her academic work on the history of slavery in America—are deprived of these basic freedoms every day. In her studies of Zora Neale Hurston, Deborah Plant became fascinated by Hurston’s explanation for the atrocities of the international slave trade. In her memoir, Dust Tracks on a Road, Hurston wrote: “But the inescapable fact that stuck in my craw, was: my people had sold me and the white people had bought me. . . . It impressed upon me the universal nature of greed and glory.” We look the other way when the basic human rights of marginalized and stigmatized groups are violated and desecrated, not realizing that only the practice of justice everywhere secures justice, for any of us, anywhere. An active vigilance is required of those who would be and remain free; with Of Greed and Glory, Deborah Plant reveals the many ways in which slavery continues in America today and charts our collective course toward personal sovereignty for all. Plant’s urgent work dissects the American systems that perpetuate bondage: The 13th Amendment Loophole: An unflinching look at the constitutional clause that allows slavery to persist as punishment for a crime, fueling the modern prison-industrial complex. From Plantation to Penitentiary: A harrowing history of Louisiana’s Angola prison, tracing its origins as a slave plantation to its current status as America’s largest maximum-security prison. Mass Incarceration as Memoir: The author’s personal journey as she confronts the system holding her own brother in a life sentence, connecting historical research to present-day tragedy. The Convict Leasing System: An essential investigation into the post-Reconstruction practice that re-enslaved Black Americans and laid the groundwork for today's injustices. Inspired by Zora Neale Hurston: A deep dive into Hurston’s concept of "greed and glory" as the engine behind centuries of human bondage and exploitation.

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