Joy and Pain: A Story of Black Life and Liberation in Five Albums

A poignant account of how the carceral state shapes daily life for young Black people—and how Black Americans resist, find joy, and cultivate new visions for the future.

At the Southern California Library—a community organization and an archive of radical and progressive movements—the author meets a young man, Marley. In telling Marley’s story, Damien M. Sojoyner depicts the overwhelming nature of Black precarity in the twenty‑first century through the lenses of housing, education, health ...