{"product_id":"shades-of-freedom-volume-two-race-and-the-american-legal-process-racial-politics-and-presumptions-of-the-american-legal-process-9780195122886","title":"SHADES OF FREEDOM VOLUME TWO RACE AND THE AMERICAN LEGAL PROCESS: Racial Politics and Presumptions of the American Legal Process","description":"\u003cp\u003eFew individuals have had as great an impact on the law--both its practice and its history--as A. Leon Higginbotham  Jr. A winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom  the nations highest civilian honor  he has distinguished himself over the decades both as a professor at Yale  the University of Pennsylvania  and Harvard  and as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals. But Judge Higginbotham is perhaps best known as an authority on racism in America: not the least important achievement of his long career has been In the Matter of Color  the first volume in a monumental history of race and the American legal process. Published in 1978  this brilliant book has been hailed as the definitive account of racism  slavery  and the law in colonial America. Now  after twenty years  comes the long-awaited sequel. In Shades of Freedom  Higginbotham 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 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 Higginbotham uses to portray race relations at two vital moments in our history. The Dred Scott decision of 1857 declared that a slave who had escaped to free territory must be returned to his slave owner. Chief Justice Roger Taney  in his notorious opinion for the majority  stated that blacks were \"so inferior that they had no right which the white man was bound to respect.\" For Higginbotham  Taneys decision reflects the extreme state that race relations had reached just before the Civil War. And after the War and Reconstruction  Higginbotham reveals  the Courts showed a pervasive reluctance (if not hostility) toward the goal of full and equal justice for African Americans  and this was particularly true of the Supreme Court. And in the Plessy v. Ferguson decision  which Higginbotham terms \"one of the most catastrophic racial decisions ever rendered \" the Court held that full equality--in schooling or housing  for instance--was unnecessary as long as there were \"separate but equal\" facilities. Higginbotham also documents the eloquent voices that opposed the openly racist workings of the judicial system  from Reconstruction Congressman John R. Lynch to Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan to W. E. B. Du Bois  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  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.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45647004172341,"sku":"ByrdShop_0195122887","price":21.62,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780195122886.jpg?v=1781685180","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/shades-of-freedom-volume-two-race-and-the-american-legal-process-racial-politics-and-presumptions-of-the-american-legal-process-9780195122886","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}