# Folklore and Seeing: Photographs from Cummins Prison

In two separate decisions in 1969 and 1970, Holt v. Sarver I and II, U.S. District Judge J. Smith Henley declared the Arkansas prison system unconstitutional on the grounds that it was cruel and unusual punishment. This was the first time a state's prison system had been declared illegal, and the first time that a Federal judge ordered a state to radically change the way it dealt with prisoners. A year later, ethnographer Bruce Jackson, who had previously done a great deal of work in the Texas prison system, made a brief visit to Cummins prison in Grady, Ark., to see what the worst prison in the United States looked like.

- Kind: Talk
- Year: 2010
- By: American Folklife Center
- Genres: History
- Archive: [Library of Congress](https://www.loc.gov/item/2021688418/)
- Licence or status: Rights statement at the Library of Congress (as the archive states it)
- Credit: Library of Congress
- Who can watch: Teens profiles and older (the archive gives no rating; placed by Invisible Network from its collection and subjects)

[Watch now](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/watch/archive/loc/2021688418?play=1)