Please join Dr. Gregory S. Taylor, Distinguished Professor of History at Chowan University, for a Book Talk, on his latest publication, Central Prison. This virtual event will be held Thursday, May 2021 from 11:00 am-12:00 pm on zoom at https://chowan-edu.zoom.us/j/95555274723.

Join Dr. Taylor as he discusses North Carolina as seen through its State Penitentiary: four centuries of politics, economics, and race.  

Dr. Taylor’s Central Prison masterfully details the history of North Carolina’s State Penitentiary as the first scholarly study to explore the prison’s entire history, from its origins in the 1870s to its status in the beginning decades of the twenty-first century. Dr. Taylor looks at the many intricacies of the state’s prison system including convict leasing, chain gangs, execution, and even the treatment of inmates at the nearby Women’s Prison, in order to illuminate the difficulties of living incarcerated in the state’s penitentiary. As an excellent writer and researcher, Dr. Taylor brilliantly incorporates significant sections of the state’s history into his discussion so as to show the undeniable connections between the changes happening in society and those directly affecting Central Prison. He also artfully depicts the physical prison itself as a product of the state, corrupted by issues of race, gender, sectionalism, political infighting, and inequality.