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How Slaves Used the Law by The Atlantic

How Slaves Used the Law

from Good on Paper

by The Atlantic

Published: Tue Aug 27 2024

Show Notes

There’s a traditional line of thinking about the history of Black people and the law. It describes how slaves were entirely shut out of the legal system, disenfranchised and bereft of even a modicum of legal know-how or protection.


But research from the UC Berkeley professor Dylan C. Penningroth (in his book Beforethe Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights) upends that narrative by tracing the overlooked history of how Black people used the law in everyday life: through rights of contract, property, marriage, and more—even under slavery and Jim Crow.


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