Format:
1 online resource (676 pages)
ISBN:
9780198028673
Content:
In Shades of Freedom, Judge A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr. provides a magisterial account of the interaction between the law and racial oppression in America from colonial times to the present, demonstrating how the one agent that should have guaranteed equal treatment before the law--the judicial system--instead played a dominant role in enforcing the inferior position of blacks. The issue of racial inferiority is central to this volume, as Judge Higginbotham documents how early white perceptions of black inferiority slowly became codified into law.Perhaps the most powerful and insightful writing centers on a pair of famous Supreme Court cases, which Judge Higginbotham uses to portray race relations at two vital moments in our history--the Dred Scott decision of 1857, and the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896. Judge Higginbotham also documents the eloquent voices that opposed the openly racist workings of the judicial system, and he shows that, ironically, it was the conservative Supreme Court of the 1930s that began the attack on school segregation, and overturned the convictions of African Americans in the famous Scottsboro case. But, today, racial bias still dominates the nation, Judge Higginbotham concludes, as he shows how in six recent court cases, the public perception of black inferiority continues to persist.In Shades of Freedom, a noted scholar and celebrated jurist offers a work of magnificent scope, insight, and passion. Ranging from the earliest colonial times to the present, it is a superb work of history--and a mirror to the American soul.
Content:
Cover Page -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: From Total Racial Oppression to Shades of Freedom -- The Scope of This Volume -- "A Black Man Did It": Commonalities of Perception -- "It's a Long Road" -- The Role of the Supreme Court -- The Road Ahead: Still Many "Miles to Go" -- 1: My Forty-Year Journey in Formulating the Precepts -- 2: The Precept of Inferiority -- The Most Enduring Precept -- The Object of Hate -- The Stages of Development of the Precept of Inferiority -- 3: The Ancestry of Inferiority (1619-1662) -- Last Among Equals -- Blackness As Sin -- 4: The Ideology of Inferiority (1662-1830) -- Determining Status by Sex, Marriage, and Racial "Purity" -- Redeeming the "Inferior" Through Religion and Civilization? -- Punishment, Murder, Malice, and Inferiority -- 5: The Politics of Inferiority (1830-1865) -- Abolition and Uncle Tom: Political Posturing Without Challenging Notions of Inferiority -- Dred Scott v. Sandford: The Legal Defense of Inferiority -- 6: The Constitutional Language of Slavery: From Non-disclosure to Abolition, 1787-1866 -- The Framers' Intentional Non-disclosure of Their Legitimization of Slavery and Their Implementation of the Precept of Black Inferiority -- Conflicting Assessments of a Constitution that Sanctioned Slavery -- The Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment -- The Civil Rights Act of 1866 -- 7: The Dream of Freedom and Its Demise -- Had "The long sickness … come to end"? -- The One Pervading Purpose -- The Beginning of the Judicial Betrayal of African Americans -- The Political Betrayal: The 1877 Hayes-Tilden Election Compromise -- 8: The Supreme Court's Sanction of Racial Hatred: The 1883 Civil Rights Cases -- The Inferiority Precept and Public Accommodations.
Note:
Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources
Additional Edition:
ISBN 9780195122886
Additional Edition:
Erscheint auch als Druck-Ausgabe ISBN 9780195122886
Language:
English
URL:
https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kxp/detail.action?docID=272689
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