Brian Dolinar, Ph.D. is an independent journalist who works on issues of mass incarceration and immigration. His articles have appeared at The Appeal, Chicago Reader, Counterpunch, In These Times, The Nation, Prison Legal News, and Truthout. He is the author of The Black Cultural Front: Black Writers and Artists of the Depression Generation (University Press of Mississippi, 2012) and editor of The Negro in Illinois: The WPA Papers (University of Illinois Press, 2013). He has taught history and African American Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Follow his writings at his Substack newsletter, “Sentences.”