Race, Place, and the Law, 1836-1948Black and white Americans have occupied separate spaces since the days of "the big house" and "the quarters." But the segregation and racialization of American society was not a natural phenomenon that "just happened." The decisions, enacted into laws, that kept the races apart and restricted blacks to less desirable places sprang from legal reasoning which argued that segregated spaces were right, reasonable, and preferable to other arrangements. In this book, David Delaney explores the historical intersections of race, place, and the law. Drawing on court cases spanning more than a century, he examines the moves and countermoves of attorneys and judges who participated in the geopolitics of slavery and emancipation; in the development of Jim Crow segregation, which effectively created apartheid laws in many cities; and in debates over the "doctrine of changed conditions," which challenged the legality of restrictive covenants and private contracts designed to exclude people of color from white neighborhoods. This historical investigation yields new insights into the patterns of segregation that persist in American society today. |
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... contract was drawn up that " the doctrine of changed conditions " should apply . This doctrine , essentially a rule of judicial interpretation , allowed judges to de- cline to enforce the terms of a contract if , because of changes in ...
... contract had been defeated . Enforcement of the contract would therefore be inequitable . Whether the claim would be accepted by a judge is of course another matter . " Equity " in the Anglo American legal tradition is supplemental to ...
... contract - Jochems noted that there was nothing the covenantors could do to " prevent colored people from acquiring all the property around them right up to the boundary of the properties involved in the contract . " 44 He concluded ...
Contents
Geographies of Slavery and Emancipation | 29 |
Legal Reasoning and the Geopolitics of NineteenthCentury | 55 |
The Geopolitics of Jim Crow | 93 |
Copyright | |
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