Law Commons^™

Race Nuisance: The Politics Of Law In The Jim Crow Era, Rachel D. Godsil

ExpressO

This article explores a startling and previously unnoticed line of cases in which state courts in the Jim Crow era ruled against white plaintiffs trying to use common law nuisance doctrine to achieve residential segregation. These “race-nuisance” cases complicate the view of most legal scholarship that state courts during the Jim Crow era openly eschewed the rule of law in service of white supremacy. Instead, the cases provide rich social historical detail showing southern judges wrestling with their competing allegiance to precedent and the white plaintiffs’ pursuit of racial exclusivity. Surprisingly to many in the academy, the allegiance to precedent …

Mestizaje And The Mexican Mestizo Self: No Hay Sangre Negra, So There Is No Blackness, Taunya Lovell Banks

Faculty Scholarship

Many legal scholars who write about Mexican mestizaje omit references to Afromexicans, Mexico’s African roots, and contemporary anti-black sentiments in the Mexican and Mexican American communities. The reasons for the erasure or invisibility of Mexico’s African roots are complex. It argues that post-colonial officials and theorists in shaping Mexico’s national image were influenced two factors: the Spanish colonial legacy and the complex set of rules creating a race-like caste system with a distinct anti-black bias reinforced through art; and the negative images of Mexico and Mexicans articulated in the United States during the early nineteenth century. The post-colonial Mexican becomes …

"The Dean Of Chicago's Black Lawyers": Earl Dickerson And Civil Rights Lawyering In The Years Before Brown, Jay Tidmarsh, Stephen Robinson

Journal Articles

Brown v. Board of Education is a watershed in American law and society. In the years since it was decided, Brown has shaped America's views of race, constitutionalism, and equality. Brown exerts an equally important influence over the historiography of civil rights lawyering in the decades before Brown. In particular, in constructing the story of civil rights lawyering in the crucial years between World War I and World War II, historians and legal scholars have focused primarily on the people and the events that shaped Brown.

The Riddle Of Hiram Revels, Richard A. Primus

Articles

In 1870, a black man named Hiram Revels was named to represent Mississippi in the Senate. Senate Democrats objected to seating him and pointed out that the Constitution specifies that no person may be a senator who has not been a citizen of the United States for at least nine years. Before the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, the Democrats argued, Revels had not been a citizen on account of the Supreme Court's 1857 decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford. Thus, even if Revels were a citizen in 1870, he had held that status for only two years. …

The Provincial Archive As A Place Of Memory: The Role Of Former Slaves In The Cuban War Of Independence (1895-98), Rebecca Scott

Book Chapters

Prof. Scott focuses on the study of the role of former slaves in the Cuban War of Independence, in light of the avoidance of the theme of race within this war in Cuban historiography. She discusses reasons for the silence on race issues, and for the historic construction of the "myth" of racial equality in this era.

Regionalism, The Supreme Court, And Effective Governance: Healing Problems That Know No Bounds, Nick J. Sciullo

Nick J. Sciullo

By actively endorsing remedies that favor a city-suburb divide, the Supreme Court has failed to allow regional development. The Supreme Court's federalism jurisprudence is unresponsive to the myriad issues pervading society. Ultimately, individuals must take action, through a process formulated in this article, to change the way in which governments and the courts respond to the needs of populations.

A battery of cases including Brown v. Board of Education and its progeny, Missouri v. Jenkins and Milliken v. Bradley, reached the Supreme Court during the tumultuous 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. A vast array of environmental laws and housing regulations also …