Black trials : citizenship from the beginnings of slavery to the end of caste / Mark S. Weiner.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Weiner, Mark Stuart.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

African Americans--Legal status, laws, etc--History.

African Americans.

African Americans--Legal status, laws, etc.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

xvii, 421 pages ; 25 cm

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New York : Alfred A. Knopf ; New York : Distributed by Random House, ©2004.

Summary:

Annotation "A sweeping history of American ideas of belonging and citizenship, told through the stories of 14 legal cases that helped to shape our nation. Spanning colonial times to the present, Black Trials tells how the place of blacks in American society evolved through the actions of our courts of law. Some of the cases discussed are legendary, such as the ordeal of John Brown, the fiery abolitionist who stood trial prostrate on a cot. Some are forgotten, such as that of the 18th-century free black Joseph Hanno, charged not only with the brutal murder of his wife but with having brought the pox to Boston. All of these cases compelled the legal system and the public to reconsider the place of blacks in America and, in so doing, to reconcile our founding ideals with the evolving realities of American life. Drawing on a wealth of new archival sources, Weiner gives us the essential dramas of American civic identity-illuminating where our sense of minority rights has come from and where it might go. Combining brilliant interdisciplinary analysis with riveting narrative, Black Trials offers a new way of thinking about inclusion in America-the issue underlying all our social cleavages."

Contents:

Let us make a tryal : Joseph Hanno and Cotton Mather, Boston, 1721

This villainous conspiracy : the great Negro plot, New York, 1741

Air too pure : Somerset's case, London, 1772

I should not turn her out : Crandall v. Connecticut, Hartford, 1833

All we want is make us free : the Amistad, Washington, 1841

Christian witness : Jones v. Van Zandt, Cincinnati, 1847

The law of blood : John Brown, Virginia, 1859

Original purity : the Ku Klux Klan trials, South Carolina, 1871

In the nature of things : the civil rights cases, California, 1883, and Plessy v. Ferguson, Louisiana, 1896

Black, white, and red : the Scottsboro boys, Alabama, 1931

Hearts and minds : Brown v. Board of Education, Kansas, 1954

To die for the people : Huey Newton, California, 1968

Confirmation : Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas, Washington, 1991

Statistics and citizenship : Mumia Abu-Jamal, Philadelphia, 2001.

Notes:

"Published simultaneously in Canada"--Title page verso.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 373-403) and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Weiner, Mark Stuart. Black trials.

ISBN:

0375409815

9780375409813

OCLC:

54529147

Online:

Contributor biographical information

Publisher description