The author begins with the birth of civil rights - the circumstances, acts and legacy of the 39th Congress, constitutional origins, passage and structure of the

A new edition of a classic work revealing the little-known history of African Americans in New York City before Emancipation. The popular understanding of the h

Whether peonage in the South grew out of slavery, a natural and perhaps unavoidable interlude between bondage and freedom, or whether employers distorted laws a

Students of American history know of the law’s critical role in systematizing a racial hierarchy in the United States. Showing that this history is best appre

On the eve of the Civil War, most people of color in the United States toiled in bondage. Yet nearly half a million of these individuals, including over 250,000