January 1983

Thomas Beasley and Doctor Crants found Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) in Nashville, Tennessee, pioneering the for-profit private prison industry. CCA wins its first contract to manage a facility in Hamilton County, Tennessee. The company's profit model depends on high incarceration rates that fall disproportionately on Black Americans.

The National Urban League's annual State of Black America report for 1983 documents catastrophic economic conditions: Black unemployment at 20%, Black child poverty at 47%, and median Black family income at 56% of white family income. John Jacob, Urban League president, attributes the crisis directly to Reagan's budget cuts and the recession.

The National Urban League's State of Black America 1983 reports Black unemployment at 20%, Black child poverty at 47%, and median Black family income at 56% of white family income. President John Jacob attributes the crisis directly to Reagan's budget cuts and the recession.

Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to Congress and the first Black candidate to seek a major party presidential nomination (1972), retires from the House of Representatives after seven terms representing Brooklyn's 12th Congressional District. Her retirement reduces Black women's representation in a Congress that at the time contains only a handful of Black women members.