Legal History Commons^™

Complicated Lives: Free Blacks In Virginia, 1619-1865, Sherri L. Burr

Faculty Book Display Case

Would the United States have developed differently if Virginia had not passed a law in 1670 proclaiming all subsequently arriving Africans as servants for life, or slaves? What if the state had not stripped all Free Blacks and Indians of voting rights in 1723, or outlawed interracial sex for 337 years?

Complicated Lives upends the pervasive belief that all Africans landing on the shores of Virginia beginning in late August 1619, became slaves. In reality, many of these kidnap victims received the status of indentured servants. Indeed, hundreds of thousands of free African Americans in the South and North owned …

Dean Melanie Leslie's Remarks For The Launch Of Women's Votes, Women's Voices: The 19th Amendment At 100, Melanie B. Leslie

Speeches & Presentations

On June 4, 2019, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law launched Women's Votes, Women's Voices: The 19th Amendment at 100. Women's Votes, Women's Voices is a year of celebration and scholarly discussion marking one hundred years of the 19th Amendment, which prohibited states from denying citizens the right to vote on the basis of sex, though not all women would have the same ability to vote or to make their voices heard. Bookended by the anniversaries of the passage of the amendment in June 1919 and its ratification in August 1920, #19at100 will commemorate these historical milestones with interactive …