1. What are the similarities and differences between slavery, Jim Crow, and
the New Jim Crow?

In the system of slavery, blacks had utterly no rights whatsoever and were locked into a closed system of exploitation. It was race-based and not eradicated until the Civil War. It was characterized by extreme and arbitrary violence. Jim Crow laws were passed in Southern states after slavery was eradicated in order to reduce former slaves - who were theoretically equal citizens now - to a place of subordination. These laws regarding segregation limited almost all civil liberties and political and economic equality. Jim Crow was overturned due to the efforts of the mid-20th-century Civil Rights Movement. Now that it was illegal to discriminate overtly against blacks, the New Jim Crow system of mass incarceration was born. It was even more sneaky and almost impervious to claims of racism. It disenfranchises and marginalizes people of color just like Jim Crow did, but it's much easier to look the other way or not see the system as racially motivated.