"Imprisoned By War" by Jason A. Higgins

Iraq War veteran David Carlson lives in the wake of intergenerational trauma, American wars, and incarceration. “My dad is from Mississippi. He’s my Black side,” Carlson says. “He was also an infantryman. After Vietnam, he got into a criminal lifestyle.” David’s father, Abra Hayes, had a brutal life in the Jim Crow South, living under the yoke of white supremacy. Carlson vividly recalls his father’s cautionary tale, warning him of the inherent dangers of being a Black man in America. During his childhood, young Abra witnessed the lynching of a Black man who—along with more than forty-four hundred victims of racial terror—was denied the constitutional right of due process and equal treatment under the law.

Read the full article from Inquest.org, reprinted from Jason A. Higgins's book Prisoners After War (2024, University of Massachusetts Press): https://inquest.org/imprisoned-by-war/