The familiar story of Civil Rights goes something like this: Once, the American legal system was dominated by racist officials who shut Black people out and refused to recognize their basic human dignity.
Based on long-forgotten sources found in the basements of county courthouses, Before the Movement recovers a vision of Black life allied with, yet distinct from, the freedom struggle..
Well-versed in the law, Black people had used it to their advantage for nearly a century to shape how they worked, worshiped, learned, and loved.
Penningroth overturns this story, demonstrating that Black people had long exercised the Rights of everyday use, and that this lesser-known private-law tradition paved the way for the modern vision of Civil rights.
In Before the Movement , historian Dylan C.
Then, starting in the 1940s, a few brave lawyers ventured south, bent on changing the law--and soon, everyday African Americans joined with them to launch the Civil Rights Movement.
The familiar story of Civil Rights goes something like this: Once, the American legal system was dominated by racist officials who shut Black people out and refused to recognize their basic human dignity
