The Dark Past: The US Supreme Court and African Americans, 1800―2015

For most of its existence, the US Supreme Court has sustained slavery, racial discrimination, segregation, racial inequality, and white preference through constitutional interpretation and legal doctrine. During America's first two centuries, slavery was the law of the land. The Court initially avoided challenging it, and in 1857, it seemed that the justices were committed to defending it with the disastrous Dred Scott decision, which denied that Black Americans could claim any rights under the Constitution. The Court also failed to sustain Congress's effort to accord rights and status to Black Americans during Reconstruction, and it accepted white supremacy in the 1896 decision in Plessy v. Ferguson , which ratified the doctrine of "separate but equal." It did better in the Civil Rights Era, 1954-1972, but then again retreated in the face of political backlash. The Dark Past offers a historical overview and interpretive guide to all the major cases decided by US Supreme Court that have affected the freedom and rights of Black Americans since 1800. It lends coherence to what could otherwise be a disjointed chronicle of cases and connects the events of the past to the current era of racial inequality-most recently exhibited in the Shelby County v. Holder (2015) decision, which hobbled the Voting Rights Act. Throughout the six hundred volumes of the United States Reports the justices have almost never alluded to the reality of racism or used words that denote it. Only once has the phrase "white supremacy" appeared in an opinion of the Court, and only thirty or so times has a member of the Court referred to "racism." The Dark Past, on the other hand, incorporates structural racism as a principal definition of inequality in the contemporary Black legal experience as it updates and enlarges our understanding of how the legal foundations of inequality structure American society. Cover The Dark Past : The US Supreme Court and African Americans, 1800–2015 Copyright Dedication Contents Acknowledgments Prologue 1: The Supreme Court and Slavery, 1800–1860 The Marshall Court, 1801–1835: Prudent Avoidance Somerset in America: La Jeune Eugenie (1822) and The Antelope (1825) The Taney Court Accommodates Slavery, 1835–1850 Dred Scott and the Slaveholders’ Constitution, 1850–1860 2: Reconstruction and the Supreme Court, 1862–1880 The Reconstruction Amendments The Supreme Court and Reconstruction, 1865–1880 3: Redemption, 1880–1900 The Triumph of Pretense and Pretext Confining Congressional Power: The State Action Doctrine Miscegenation Jim Crow on the Move: Segregated Transportation and the Commerce Clause The Triumph of Jim Crow Disfranchisement 4: The Nadir and the Blue Hour, 1900–1920 The Nadir Peonage and Involuntary Servitude The Blue Hour 5: Civil Rights and Civil Liberties between the Wars, 1920–1940 The Legal Construction of Race Procedural Due Process in State Criminal Trials Voting Rights Substantive Liberties “Discrete and Insular Minorities”: The Carolene Products Case 6: War and Cold War, 1941–1953 The Roosevelt Court The New Paradigm: Strict Scrutiny for Racial Classifications The Near Death of Reconstruction-Era Civil Rights Legislation Residential Segregation The Ballot Interstate Travel Higher Education 7: The Second Reconstruction, 1954–1971 The Warren Court Brown v. Board of Education and Its Impact Desegregation to Integration The First Amendment, Public Demonstrations, and the Sit-In Cases The Civil Rights Act of 1964 The Thirteenth Amendment and the 1866 Civil Rights Act Revived Court, Congress, and Enforcement of Rights The Problem of State Action Voting Rights Cohabitation and Marriage 8: Right Turn, 1960–1980 Structural Racism Color-Blindness Neutrality Racialization White Normativity and Advantage Invisibility Dynamism The Political Origins of Racial Retrenchment The Nixon Court 9: The Resegregation of America’s Schools Desegregation Falters: The Retreat from Brown I The Court Affirms Resegregation School Finance and Fundamental Rights Busing and Popular Initiatives School District Secession Segregation Academies: Racial Discrimination in Private Education Parents Involved : The Court Bars States from Preventing Resegregation 10: The Death of Affirmative Action Affirmative Action and Higher Education Affirmative Action in the Labor Market Affirmative Action in Public Contracts 11: Redemption Redux, 1972–2015 Fundamental Rights and State Action Discriminatory Intent versus Disparate Impact: Washington v. Davis Access to the Ballot Housing and Residential Segregation Notes Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Epilogue Suggested Reading Index