Melissa Milewski
Biographic Data
| ID | 2112093 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Melissa Milewski |
| GIVEN NAMES | Melissa |
| FAMILY NAME | Milewski |
| SIGNATURE | MILEWSKI M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Sussex |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2951-3814 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 3 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 12 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2019 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Reframing Black Southerners’ Experiences in the Courts, 1865–1950
In civil cases that took place in southern courts from the end of the Civil War to the mid-twentieth century, black men and women frequently chose to bring litigation and then negotiated the white-dominated legal system to shape their cases and assert rights. In some ways, these civil cases were diametrically opposite from the criminal cases of black defendants who did not choose to enter a courtroom and often received unequal justice. However, t…
Taking former masters to court
This essay analyses the trial records of civil cases between former slaves and their former slaveholders between 1865 and 1899 to consider the different, often competing, ways in which these parties portrayed the antebellum and postbellum worlds. In courtrooms around the post-war South, former slaves and former masters wove diverging narratives about slavery, capitalism and labor, family and authority, and sexual violence. Litigants sought to lev…
Forum introduction
Slavery, Freedom
Christopher W. Schmidt. The Sit-Ins
Christopher W. Schmidt’s The Sit-Ins: Protest and Legal Change in the Civil Rights Era masterfully reinserts the legal aspects of the sit-in protests back into the history of the U.S. civil rights movement. While scholars in the 1960s recognized the legal questions and legal battles surrounding the sit-ins as a key part of the struggle, in recent decades most scholars of the sit-ins have focused largely on the direct action rather than on the cou…
The Burning House
In The Burning House Anders Walker examines the literary and legal roots of an understanding of “diversity” that was advocated by black and white writers during the period of Jim Crow and influenced U.S. Supreme Court judges Lewis Powell and Clarence Thomas, but that has often been dismissed by scholars. In this conception of diversity, separate racial cultural traditions were to be valued, and racial integration was seen as problematic or not pr…
Litigating Across the Color Line
From 1865 to 1950, when the financial futures of their families were on the line, black litigants throughout the South took on white southerners in civil suits. In almost a thousand civil cases across eight southern states, former slaves took their former masters to court, black sharecroppers litigated disputes against white landowners, and African Americans with little formal education brought disputes against wealthy white members of their comm…
Fighting for Rights in the Courts
Chapter 8 traces African Americans’ continuing civil litigation in southern courts from 1921 to 1950. Beginning in the 1920s, African Americans began to litigate a wider range of types of civil cases against whites in southern state supreme courts. Black litigants were no longer forced to rely so heavily on stereotypes and claims of ignorance and vulnerability to win a case. More and more of black litigants’ seemingly ordinary appellate civil cas…
How to Litigate a Case Against a White Southerner
Chapter 2 traces the legal journey of African Americans who succeeded in litigating cases against white southerners in the 35 years after the Civil War. In many cases, they litigated suits against the very whites who had enslaved them. The chapter discusses why black southerners turned to the courts and the obstacles they met in attempting to litigate suits against whites. It follows black southerners as they hired lawyers, testified before crowd…
The New South and the Law
Chapter 5 shows the shifts that occurred in the types of civil cases African Americans were able to litigate in southern courts at the end of the nineteenth century, as segregation and disfranchisement became increasingly written into law around the South. Even as white southerners dismantled the political system put in place during Reconstruction, they did not change the structure of the legal system. They viewed black southerners’ involvement i…
Confronting Fraud Through the Courts
Chapter 6 examines the fraud cases that black southerners litigated against whites in the first two decades of the twentieth century, in which they accused whites of deception in property dealings. Such cases formed an unusually large proportion of civil cases involving black and white litigants in the state supreme courts examined during the first two decades of the twentieth century. In case after case, black litigants testified about their dil…
The Law of Contracts and Property
Chapter 4 examines cases between 1865 and 1899 in which black southerners faced off against whites over everyday economic matters, disputing contracts, contesting transactions of land or livestock, and demanding fair payment for work they had completed. More than one-third of these cases involved black and white participants who had known one another as master and slave. As they litigated such suits, African Americans throughout the South asserte…
From Slave to Litigant
In 1859, after the death of his mistress, a slave named Mat Fine was taken to the Jefferson, Kentucky, County Court House “in the inventory of Lucy Fine's estate as her property.” There, he was inventoried along with her other possessions. Only a few years later, just after the Civil War, Fine returned to the local court house as a defendant in a civil case over the money his former mistress had left him in her will. There he stood before the civ…
From Slave to Litigant
In 1859, after the death of his mistress, a slave named Mat Fine was taken to the Jefferson, Kentucky, County Court House “in the inventory of Lucy Fine's estate as her property.” There, he was inventoried along with her other possessions. Only a few years later, just after the Civil War, Fine returned to the local court house as a defendant in a civil case over the money his former mistress had left him in her will. There he stood before the civ…
The Burning House
In The Burning House Anders Walker examines the literary and legal roots of an understanding of “diversity” that was advocated by black and white writers during the period of Jim Crow and influenced U.S. Supreme Court judges Lewis Powell and Clarence Thomas, but that has often been dismissed by scholars. In this conception of diversity, separate racial cultural traditions were to be valued, and racial integration was seen as problematic or not pr…
From Slave to Litigant
In 1859, after the death of his mistress, a slave named Mat Fine was taken to the Jefferson, Kentucky, County Court House “in the inventory of Lucy Fine's estate as her property.” There, he was inventoried along with her other possessions. Only a few years later, just after the Civil War, Fine returned to the local court house as a defendant in a civil case over the money his former mistress had left him in her will. There he stood before the civ…
Litigating Across the Color Line
From 1865 to 1950, when the financial futures of their families were on the line, black litigants throughout the South took on white southerners in civil suits. In almost a thousand civil cases across eight southern states, former slaves took their former masters to court, black sharecroppers litigated disputes against white landowners, and African Americans with little formal education brought disputes against wealthy white members of their comm…
Fighting for Rights in the Courts
Chapter 8 traces African Americans’ continuing civil litigation in southern courts from 1921 to 1950. Beginning in the 1920s, African Americans began to litigate a wider range of types of civil cases against whites in southern state supreme courts. Black litigants were no longer forced to rely so heavily on stereotypes and claims of ignorance and vulnerability to win a case. More and more of black litigants’ seemingly ordinary appellate civil cas…
How to Litigate a Case Against a White Southerner
Chapter 2 traces the legal journey of African Americans who succeeded in litigating cases against white southerners in the 35 years after the Civil War. In many cases, they litigated suits against the very whites who had enslaved them. The chapter discusses why black southerners turned to the courts and the obstacles they met in attempting to litigate suits against whites. It follows black southerners as they hired lawyers, testified before crowd…
The New South and the Law
Chapter 5 shows the shifts that occurred in the types of civil cases African Americans were able to litigate in southern courts at the end of the nineteenth century, as segregation and disfranchisement became increasingly written into law around the South. Even as white southerners dismantled the political system put in place during Reconstruction, they did not change the structure of the legal system. They viewed black southerners’ involvement i…
Confronting Fraud Through the Courts
Chapter 6 examines the fraud cases that black southerners litigated against whites in the first two decades of the twentieth century, in which they accused whites of deception in property dealings. Such cases formed an unusually large proportion of civil cases involving black and white litigants in the state supreme courts examined during the first two decades of the twentieth century. In case after case, black litigants testified about their dil…
The Law of Contracts and Property
Chapter 4 examines cases between 1865 and 1899 in which black southerners faced off against whites over everyday economic matters, disputing contracts, contesting transactions of land or livestock, and demanding fair payment for work they had completed. More than one-third of these cases involved black and white participants who had known one another as master and slave. As they litigated such suits, African Americans throughout the South asserte…
Reframing Black Southerners’ Experiences in the Courts, 1865–1950
In civil cases that took place in southern courts from the end of the Civil War to the mid-twentieth century, black men and women frequently chose to bring litigation and then negotiated the white-dominated legal system to shape their cases and assert rights. In some ways, these civil cases were diametrically opposite from the criminal cases of black defendants who did not choose to enter a courtroom and often received unequal justice. However, t…
Taking former masters to court
This essay analyses the trial records of civil cases between former slaves and their former slaveholders between 1865 and 1899 to consider the different, often competing, ways in which these parties portrayed the antebellum and postbellum worlds. In courtrooms around the post-war South, former slaves and former masters wove diverging narratives about slavery, capitalism and labor, family and authority, and sexual violence. Litigants sought to lev…
Forum introduction
Slavery, Freedom
Christopher W. Schmidt. The Sit-Ins
Christopher W. Schmidt’s The Sit-Ins: Protest and Legal Change in the Civil Rights Era masterfully reinserts the legal aspects of the sit-in protests back into the history of the U.S. civil rights movement. While scholars in the 1960s recognized the legal questions and legal battles surrounding the sit-ins as a key part of the struggle, in recent decades most scholars of the sit-ins have focused largely on the direct action rather than on the cou…
The Burning House
In The Burning House Anders Walker examines the literary and legal roots of an understanding of “diversity” that was advocated by black and white writers during the period of Jim Crow and influenced U.S. Supreme Court judges Lewis Powell and Clarence Thomas, but that has often been dismissed by scholars. In this conception of diversity, separate racial cultural traditions were to be valued, and racial integration was seen as problematic or not pr…
Law (12 works) · Political science (12 works) · Race, History, and American Society (11 works) · Sociology (7 works) · Civil rights (6 works) · Spanish Civil War (6 works) · Colonialism, slavery, and trade (5 works) · Law (5 works) · White (mutation) (5 works) · History (4 works)