Race Law And The Struggle For Racial Equality In The U S

"Casebook on race law with emphasis on American history"--

Race, Law, and the Struggle for Racial Equality in the U.S. examines how the American legal system has legitimized and institutionalized racism, from slavery to Jim Crow segregation to the modern-day era of mass incarceration. This book, the first of its kind, has evolved from the author’s own experiences of both teaching race and the law for many years and practicing Civil Rights Law for over two decades. The text employs a novel interdisciplinary approach through primary source materials; archival records, photographs, and maps; and statutes and cases, to show how the judicial, executive, and legislative branches of the U.S. have deployed the law for racial control and to foster systemic racism in the areas of education, property and housing, criminal system, and voting rights. This study of race and law provides the historical and contemporary meaning of race and racism and explores the difference between justice and law; identifies the role of race and racism in early U.S. history and in the nation’s governing documents; explains how the legal system has historically limited access to citizenship, education, property and housing, and voting rights for African Americans; describes the epidemic of mass incarceration, its stakeholders and its collateral consequences; and, most importantly, guides students to be compassionate lawyers, committed to creating a more just and merciful society. Benefits for instructors and students: The text, based on the curriculum of a race law course that has been taught for over 10 years, examines and connects historical and contemporary legal issues in the areas of education, property and housing, the criminal legal system, and voting rights Rich primary historical materials provide deep exploration of the connection of the law and racism, from past to present A wide variety of photographs, maps, and illustrations provide real examples and context Detailed background stories put cases and excerpts in vivid context The text includes explanations of the origin of race and the different manifestations of racism The author’s riveting writing style will be of high interest to students A bibliography provides an overview of the challenges faced by African Americans during the struggles for voting rights—from slavery, to post-reconstruction and Jim Crow restrictions, to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, to U.S. Supreme Court cases and constitutional constraints The text features a full treatment of the origin, the legal history of affirmative action, and the 2023 affirmative action decision of Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. University of North Carolina and Harvard University

Most of these essays were originally presented at a conference in Madison, Wisconsin, November 1989. Two contributions giving historical perspective lead off: a personal memoir and discussion of the significance for America and the world of black protest. Fourteen contributions follow, on the legal struggle, the persistence of discrimination, and perspectives on the past and future. Paper edition (unseen), $17.95. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

This second edition of Gloria Browne-Marshall’s seminal work , tracing the history of racial discrimination in American law from colonial times to the present, is now available with major revisions. Throughout, she advocates for freedom and equality at the center, moving from their struggle for physical freedom in the slavery era to more recent battles for equal rights and economic equality. From the colonial period to the present, this book examines education, property ownership, voting rights, criminal justice, and the military as well as internationalism and civil liberties by analyzing the key court cases that established America’s racial system and demonstrating the impact of these court cases on American society. This edition also includes more on Asians, Native Americans, and Latinos. Race, Law, and American Society is highly accessible and thorough in its depiction of the role race has played, with the sanction of the U.S. Supreme Court, in shaping virtually every major American social institution.

From 1840 to 1960 the profoundest claim of Americans who fought the institution of segregation was that the government had no business sorting citizens by the color of their skin. During these years the moral and political attractiveness of the antidiscrimination principle made it the ultimate legal objective of the American civil rights movement. Yet, in the contemporary debate over the politics and constitutional law of race, the vital theme of antidiscrimination has been largely suppressed. Thus a strong line of argument laying down one theoretical basis for the constitutional protection of civil rights has been lost. Andrew Kull provides us with the previously unwritten history of the color-blind idea. From the arguments of Wendell Phillips and the Garrisonian abolitionists, through the framing of the Fourteenth Amendment and Justice Harlan's famous dissent in Plessy, civil rights advocates have consistently attempted to locate the antidiscrimination principle in the Constitution. The real alternative, embraced by the Supreme Court in 1896, was a constitutional guarantee of reasonable classification. The government, it said, had the power to classify persons by race so long as it acted reasonably; the judiciary would decide what was reasonable. In our own time, in Brown v. Board of Education and the decisions that followed, the Court nearly avowed the rule of color blindness that civil rights lawyers continued to assert; instead, it veered off for political and tactical reasons, deciding racial cases without stating constitutional principle. The impoverishment of the antidiscrimination theme in the Court's decision prefigured the affirmative action shift in the civil rights agenda. The social upheaval of the 1960s put the color-blind Constitution out of reach for a quartercentury or more; but for the hard choices still to be made in racial policy, the colorblind tradition of civil rights retains both historical and practical significance.

A succinct account of racial equality and civil rights throughout American history highlights the path of racial progress and looks in particular at the contributions of law and of court decisions to American equality.

A monumental investigation of the Supreme Court's rulings on race, From Jim Crow To Civil Rights spells out in compelling detail the political and social context within which the Supreme Court Justices operate and the consequences of their decisions for American race relations. In a highly provocative interpretation of the decision's connection to the civil rights movement, Klarman argues that Brown was more important for mobilizing southern white opposition to racial change than for encouraging direct-action protest. Brown unquestioningly had a significant impact--it brought race issues to public attention and it mobilized supporters of the ruling. It also, however, energized the opposition. In this authoritative account of constitutional law concerning race, Michael Klarman details, in the richest and most thorough discussion to date, how and whether Supreme Court decisions do, in fact, matter.

The Struggle for Black Equality is a dramatic, memorable history of the civil rights movement. Harvard Sitkoff offers both a brilliant interpretation of the personalities and dynamics of civil rights organizations and a compelling analysis of the continuing problems plaguing many African Americans. With a new foreword and afterword, and an up-to-date bibliography, this anniversary edition highlights the continuing significance of the movement for black equality and justice.