Social Justice Commons^™

Corrective Justice, Equal Opportunity, And The Legacy Of Slavery And Jim Crow, David B. Lyons

Faculty Scholarship

Chattel slavery was a brutally cruel, repressive, and exploitative system of racial subjugation. When it was abolished, the former slaveholders owed the freedmen compensation for the terrible wrongs of enslavement. Ex-slaves sought reparations, especially in the form of land, but few received any sort of recompense. The wrongs they suffered were never repaired.

No one alive today can be held accountable for the wrongs of chattel slavery, and those who might now be called upon to pay reparations were not even born until many decades after slavery ended. For some scholars, the lack of accountable parties makes current reparations claims …

Tyler Johnson On Witness To The Truth: John H. Scott's Struggle For Human Rights In Louisiana By John Henry Scott With Cleo Scott Brown. Columbia: University South Carolina Press, 2003. 336pp., Tyler Johnson

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Witness to the Truth: John H. Scott's Struggle for Human Rights in Louisiana by John Henry Scott with Cleo Scott Brown. Columbia: University South Carolina Press, 2003. 336pp.

Tyler Johnson On Sons Of Mississippi: A Story Of Race And Its Legacy By Paul Hendrickson. New York: Knopf, 2003. 368pp., Tyler Johnson

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Sons of Mississippi: A Story of Race and its Legacy by Paul Hendrickson. New York: Knopf, 2003. 368pp.

How Did Belle La Follette Resist Racial Segregation In Washington D.C., 1913-1914?, Nancy Unger

History

Beginning in 1913, progressive reformer Belle Case La Follette wrote a series of articles for the "women's page" of her family's magazine, denouncing the sudden racial segregation in several departments of the federal government. Those articles reveal progressive efforts to appeal specifically to women to combat injustice, and also demonstrate the ability of women to voice important political opinions prior to suffrage.

Matthew S. Weinert On Slavery And Emancipation Edited By Rick Halpern And Enrico Del Lago. Oxford, Uk: Blackwell Publishing, 2002. 416pp., Matthew S. Weinert

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Slavery and Emancipation edited by Rick Halpern and Enrico del Lago. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing, 2002. 416pp.

The Case For Cautious Optimism: California Environmental Propositions In The Late Twentieth Century, Marie Bolton, Nancy Unger

History

The efficacy of direct democracy throughout California's history continues to be a subject of intense debate, a state-wide phenomenon with an international audience. California boasts the world's fifth largest economy, and plays a leadership role in national, and sometimes even international, politics. British scholar Wyn Grant, studying the politics of air quality management in California, succinctly sums up the burning issue for environmentalists worldwide who are striving to understand the efficacy of California's activists' efforts: in "Direct Democracy in California: Example or Warning?" Grant concludes that although direct democracy has its merits, its history in California ultimately provides more of …