By Gwyneth K. Shaw
A seed planted by old family lore led Berkeley Law Professor Dylan Penningroth to hours in the records rooms of county courthouses across the South, teasing out how Black people used the levers of the law to advance their interests from the last decades of slavery through the 1970s. Last year, he outlined the ways(opens in a new tab) cases involving race, slavery, and African Americans have been used to develop common law rules and hone doctrinal and theoretical problems in contract law.
Now, in a new book, Penningroth goes deeper into the rich material he found in those old records. Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights(opens in a new tab) explores the larger picture of how Black people worked within the laws of property, contracts, marriage and divorce, business and religious associations, and more to assert their rights — even while other parts of the legal system offered discrimination, hostility, and violence.
By exercising these “rights of everyday use,” Penningroth argues, Black Americans helped shape the law as we know it today.
Penningroth, who’s also a professor of history and associate dean of the law school’s Jurisprudence & Social Policy/Legal Studies Program(opens in a new tab), discusses the book below.
Q: Where did the idea for this book come from? I understand there were family stories that provided some sparks.
Penningroth: I had always wanted to read a book of African American history that was about African Americans — that had African Americans at the center, and not race relations. So at the highest level of generality, that’s what I was going for. Family stories probably catalyzed some of my thinking, and they certainly kept me energized along the way.
Read full interview at
https://www.law.berkeley.edu/article/dylan-penningroth-before-the-movement-book-legal-history/
