DOC Sacred Realm: The Emergence of the Synagogue in the Ancient World by From Oxford University Press in History

Description

Few individuals have had as great an impact on the law--both its practice and its history--as A. Leon Higginbotham; Jr. A winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom; the nation's highest civilian honor; he has distinguished himself over the decades both as a professor at Yale; the University of Pennsylvania; and Harvard; and as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals. But Judge Higginbotham is perhaps best known as an authority on racism in America: not the least important achievement of his long career has been In the Matter of Color; the first volume in a monumental history of race and the American legal process. Published in 1978; this brilliant book has been hailed as the definitive account of racism; slavery; and the law in colonial America. Now; after twenty years; comes the long-awaited sequel. In Shades of Freedom; Higginbotham provides a magisterial account of the interaction between the law and racial oppression in America from colonial times to the present; demonstrating how the one agent that should have guaranteed equal treatment before the law--the judicial system--instead played a dominant role in enforcing the inferior position of blacks. The issue of racial inferiority is central to this volume; as Higginbotham documents how early white perceptions of black inferiority slowly became codified into law. Perhaps the most powerful and insightful writing centers on a pair of famous Supreme Court cases; which Higginbotham uses to portray race relations at two vital moments in our history. The Dred Scott decision of 1857 declared that a slave who had escaped to free territory must be returned to his slave owner. Chief Justice Roger Taney; in his notorious opinion for the majority; stated that blacks were "so inferior that they had no right which the white man was bound to respect." For Higginbotham; Taney's decision reflects the extreme state that race relations had reached just before the Civil War. And after the War and Reconstruction; Higginbotham reveals; the Courts showed a pervasive reluctance (if not hostility) toward the goal of full and equal justice for African Americans; and this was particularly true of the Supreme Court. And in the Plessy v. Ferguson decision; which Higginbotham terms "one of the most catastrophic racial decisions ever rendered;" the Court held that full equality--in schooling or housing; for instance--was unnecessary as long as there were "separate but equal" facilities. Higginbotham also documents the eloquent voices that opposed the openly racist workings of the judicial system; from Reconstruction Congressman John R. Lynch to Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan to W. E. B. Du Bois; and he shows that; ironically; it was the conservative Supreme Court of the 1930s that began the attack on school segregation; and overturned the convictions of African Americans in the famous Scottsboro case. But today racial bias still dominates the nation; Higginbotham concludes; as he shows how in six recent court cases the public perception of black inferiority continues to persist. In Shades of Freedom; a noted scholar and celebrated jurist offers a work of magnificent scope; insight; and passion. Ranging from the earliest colonial times to the present; it is a superb work of history--and a mirror to the American soul.