Searching for Jane Crow: Black Women and Mass Incarceration in America from the Auction Block to the Cell Block

A Ms. Magazine “Most Anticipated Feminist Books of 2026” selection, this groundbreaking history gives voice to the Black women whose lives were shaped by America’s carceral system while exposing its deep roots in slavery.

Historian Talitha L. LeFlouria places Black women at the center of a compelling new interpretation of mass incarceration, arguing that the system was originally designed to protect slavery and the economic interests of enslavers—and that its legacy continues to shape American society today.

For generations, Black women have experienced disproportionately high rates of arrest, conviction, and imprisonment, yet their stories have often been overshadowed in discussions of race and incarceration. LeFlouria reveals how the intertwined systems of profit and punishment have persisted from the domestic slave trade through the post–Civil War era of convict leasing and into the modern prison system.

Drawing on extensive archival research and powerful personal testimony, Searching for Jane Crow traces this history through the lives of remarkable women, including Delia Garlic, who was imprisoned in a private slave jail before being sold; Eliza Purdy, who was jailed and auctioned after the Civil War; and Susan Burton, whose experience in the twentieth-century prison system echoes the exploitation endured by enslaved people generations earlier.

By centering the experiences of Black women, LeFlouria offers a transformative account of the origins of mass incarceration and a powerful new understanding of one of the defining issues in American history.