{"product_id":"before-the-movement-the-hidden-history-of-black-civil-rights-9781324093107","title":"Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe familiar story of civil rights goes like this: once, America's legal system shut Black people out and refused to recognize their rights, their basic human dignity, or even their very lives. When lynch mobs gathered, police and judges often closed their eyes, if they didn't join in. For Black people, law was a hostile, fearsome power to be avoided whenever possible. Then, starting in the 1940s, a few brave lawyers ventured south, bent on changing the law. Soon, ordinary African Americans, awakened by Supreme Court victories and galvanized by racial justice activists, launched the civil rights movement.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn \u003cem\u003eBefore the Movement\u003c\/em\u003e, acclaimed historian Dylan C. Penningroth brilliantly revises the conventional story. Drawing on long-forgotten sources found in the basements of county courthouses across the nation, Penningroth reveals that African Americans, far from being ignorant about law until the middle of the twentieth century, have thought about, talked about, and used it going as far back as even the era of slavery. They dealt constantly with the laws of property, contract, inheritance, marriage and divorce, of associations (like churches and businesses and activist groups), and more. By exercising these \"rights of everyday use,\" Penningroth demonstrates, they made Black rights seem unremarkable. And in innumerable subtle ways, they helped shape the law itself--the laws all of us live under today.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePenningroth's narrative, which stretches from the last decades of slavery to the 1970s, partly traces the history of his own family. Challenging accepted understandings of Black history framed by relations with white people, he puts Black people at the center of the story--their loves and anger and loneliness, their efforts to stay afloat, their mistakes and embarrassments, their fights, their ideas, their hopes and disappointments, in all their messy humanness. \u003cem\u003eBefore the Movement\u003c\/em\u003e is an account of Black legal lives that looks beyond the Constitution and the criminal justice system to recover a rich, broader vision of Black life--a vision allied with, yet distinct from, \"the freedom struggle.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Dylan C. Penningroth\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Liveright Publishing Corporation\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 09\/26\/2023\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 496\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.75lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.10h x 6.20w x 1.50d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781324093107\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e 08\/01\/2023\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e 08\/21\/2023\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePenningroth, Dylan C.:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - \u003cstrong\u003eDylan C. Penningroth\u003c\/strong\u003e is a professor of law and history at the University of California, Berkeley. A MacArthur Prize fellow and author of \u003cem\u003eThe Claims of Kinfolk: African American Property and Community in the Nineteenth-Century South\u003c\/em\u003e, he lives in Kensington, California.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Winner of the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award, Winner of the Beveridge Award, American Historical Association, Winner of the Littleton-Griswold Prize, American Historical Association, Winner of the John Philip Reid Award, American Society for Legal History, Winner of the Order of the Coif Book Award, Winner of the Charles Sydnor Award, Southern Historical Association, Winner of the Scribes Book Award, Winner of the Merle Curti Social History Award from the Organization of American Historian, Winner of the Ellis W. Hawley Prize from the Organization of American Historians, Winner of the David J. Langum, Sr. Prize in American Legal History, Winner of the James Willard Hurst Prize, Finalist for the Cundill History Prize, Shortlisted for the Stone Book Award, Museum of African American History, Shortlisted for the Mark Lynton History Prize, Columbia Journalism School, and Shortlisted for the Ralph Waldo Emerson Award, Phi Beta Kappa.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"booksdeli.com","offers":[{"title":"Dylan C. Penningroth \/ Hardcover \/ English","offer_id":47598543011997,"sku":"9781324093107","price":50.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0619\/5648\/9373\/files\/img_d398f981-63d9-4817-9671-3040a1d02048.jpg?v=1769515676","url":"https:\/\/booksdeli.com\/products\/before-the-movement-the-hidden-history-of-black-civil-rights-9781324093107","provider":"booksdeli.com","version":"1.0","type":"link"}