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Activist Susan Burton in Oakland to Sign Memoir About Mass Incarceration

Susan Burton is known for advocating for the restoration of basic civil and human rights for people who have served time in prison

A women's rights activist will sign an award-winning memoir Friday afternoon in Oakland following her work helping more than 1,000 formerly incarcerated women change their lives, library officials said.

Susan Burton, who is known nationally for her work helping women reentering society, will sign her book "Becoming Ms. Burton" from 2-4 p.m. at the African American Museum and Library at 659 14th St.

Burton is the founder and executive director of the nonprofit A New Way of Life, which provides sober housing and other services to women who have been incarcerated.

Library officials said Burton is known for advocating for the restoration of basic civil and human rights for people who have served time.

"Becoming Ms. Burton" won the Goddard Riverside Stephan Russo Book Prize for Social Justice and has been compared to "The New Jim Crow-Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness."

"The New Jim Crow" is an account of "the rebirth of a caste-like system in the U.S." for black men who are locked up and relegated to second-class status, challenging the idea that racism lessened with the election of Barack Obama as president.

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