The Legal Fight for Freedom: Undergraduate Student Research
U.S. Law and Race Initiative
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06/25/2024
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Description
Undergraduate students participating in the Digital Legal Research Lab present their research on legal cases of enslaved people seeking freedom in Missouri, Wisconsin and Michigan Territories, and the D.C. area. Students share these stories along with a discussion about the importance of building research models that bring such stories into a broader conversation about American history.
Dr. Katrina Jagodinsky facilitates the discussion. This event was sponsored by the University Libraries.
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- [00:00:08.820]Good afternoon everyone and happy Juneteenth.
- [00:00:12.460]Thank you so much for coming and joining us this afternoon.
- [00:00:16.580]Thank you of course to Associate Dean Maxey-Harris
- [00:00:19.380]for inviting us to partner with this programming.
- [00:00:23.740]We work with UNL Libraries partners throughout
- [00:00:26.380]the year and are grateful to the expertise that is represented there.
- [00:00:32.720]We're also grateful to the support we
- [00:00:34.720]received from the Office of Graduate Studies,
- [00:00:36.800]particularly in the person of Casey Coleman,
- [00:00:39.420]here today and helping to administer the summer research program.
- [00:00:44.260]As Associate Dean Maxey-Harris said,
- [00:00:46.400]I'm Katrina Jagodinsky,
- [00:00:47.540]Associate Professor of History and together
- [00:00:50.400]with my co-PI Dr. Will Thomas,
- [00:00:53.460]we direct the Digital Legal Research Lab.
- [00:00:57.320]The Digital Legal Research Lab is a center that promotes
- [00:01:02.300]the training of undergraduate and graduate students,
- [00:01:07.260]in digital archiving and encoding of historical legal materials.
- [00:01:12.860]Our work is directed specifically toward the efforts of
- [00:01:17.340]marginalized people to assert legal claims in the past,
- [00:01:21.880]with an interest in bringing those stories
- [00:01:24.020]back to their constituents in the present.
- [00:01:26.700]An invitation like this one to share that research with you,
- [00:01:31.100]and with a broader audience is something we truly treasure.
- [00:01:35.060]Thank you for coming today.
- [00:01:38.100]Again, in the Digital Legal Research Lab,
- [00:01:40.660]we work with undergraduate and graduate students to
- [00:01:44.460]support their interest in these legal histories,
- [00:01:47.340]but that work is initiated from Dr. Thomas' O Say Can You See project.
- [00:01:54.120]The URL is earlywashingtondc.org,
- [00:01:58.140]and so I invite you to take a look.
- [00:02:00.360]He and a CDRH team prepared hundreds of freedom suits
- [00:02:06.440]from the Chesapeake region,
- [00:02:09.500]Washington, D.C., primarily, but also Maryland.
- [00:02:12.780]In the course of that work,
- [00:02:14.400]unearthed multiple generations of family histories of freedom.
- [00:02:18.820]It's in that freedom suit work that began really more than a decade ago,
- [00:02:24.320]that we're continuing to bring more freedom suits into the conversation.
- [00:02:28.340]That's what you will hear our undergraduates talking about today.
- [00:02:33.340]We also in the Digital Legal Research Lab,
- [00:02:36.600]support a project called Petitioning For Freedom,
- [00:02:39.660]which again builds on the insights of these
- [00:02:42.860]freedom suits as a really rich area of
- [00:02:46.000]law in which marginalized people asserted sophisticated claims,
- [00:02:50.600]and looks over at another category of law, habeas corpus petitions.
- [00:02:55.960]If you had asked me about habeas corpus 10 years ago,
- [00:02:58.980]I would have said, I don't know, I'm not a lawyer.
- [00:03:01.580]But now what I know about habeas after about a decade of research,
- [00:03:05.100]is that it was a really important tool,
- [00:03:08.300]not just for those seeking freedom.
- [00:03:10.920]Habeas constituted a form of freedom suit in certain jurisdictions,
- [00:03:15.000]but also for Indigenous people who were
- [00:03:17.400]challenging reservation confinement,
- [00:03:19.620]who were challenging child removal and confinement in boarding schools,
- [00:03:23.220]for mothers who are using habeas as a child
- [00:03:26.000]custody mechanism against fathers.
- [00:03:28.500]In some ways in the lab,
- [00:03:30.320]we're also looking at the way in which different groups of people shared
- [00:03:34.540]the same legal tools to challenge different forms of
- [00:03:38.880]coercion and oppression.
- [00:03:40.640]Applying digital tools allows us to make those comparisons on a broader scale,
- [00:03:45.260]but we're always of course interested in the individual stories
- [00:03:48.500]that those cases tell.
- [00:03:49.840]So that's what we're here to share with you today.
- [00:03:55.340]We'll go ahead and start as I said with the undergrads.
- [00:03:58.040]We're going to bring them up in groups of three.
- [00:04:00.380]So at this time, I will invite Chikamso,
- [00:04:03.500]Miranda, and Isabella to come on up and settle yourselves in.
- [00:04:09.100]As I said, each of our cluster of students
- [00:04:11.400]will briefly introduce themselves,
- [00:04:13.800]talk about the case that they've been working on,
- [00:04:16.200]and then share some of their own reflections and insights.
- [00:04:22.660]Hello, everyone.
- [00:04:24.140]Well, good afternoon.
- [00:04:28.160]As Dr. Jagodinsky mentioned, I'm Chikamso Chijioke.
- [00:04:31.380]I come from Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans, Louisiana,
- [00:04:35.020]where I study political science.
- [00:04:38.140]And today, I'm going to be talking about the case of the Dennison family.
- [00:04:43.540]Now, the Dennison family included Elizabeth James,
- [00:04:48.380]Scipio, and Peter Dennison Jr.,
- [00:04:50.060]and they were a family of enslaved people in Michigan and the Detroit area,
- [00:04:55.020]the newly formed territory,
- [00:04:57.320]and they petitioned for their freedom with a habeas corpus petition
- [00:05:02.680]like Dr. Jagodinsky just mentioned.
- [00:05:05.560]They petitioned for their freedom from a Catherine Tucker.
- [00:05:09.320]Now, their reasoning was that under the Northwest Ordinance of 1787,
- [00:05:15.300]they were no longer allowed to be held as enslaved people,
- [00:05:18.520]as the ordinance prohibited slavery in the newly formed territory.
- [00:05:23.720]So Catherine Tucker's reasoning was that under Jay's treaty,
- [00:05:29.760]which was a trade-based treaty between the United States and Great
- [00:05:33.280]Britain at the time,
- [00:05:34.640]she was allowed to hold the Dennison family as slaves.
- [00:05:38.040]Now, unfortunately, the judge reasoned with her decision,
- [00:05:42.660]reasoning that Jay's treaty allowed settlers,
- [00:05:48.280]in which Catherine Tucker was a settler,
- [00:05:49.920]she was a settler from Virginia,
- [00:05:52.040]allowed settlers to hold property of any kind,
- [00:05:54.500]and unfortunately, enslaved people counted as property.
- [00:05:58.640]But despite the negative outcome of the case itself,
- [00:06:01.880]the broader story tells a more positive side because the Dennison family was able
- [00:06:07.500]to achieve their freedom when they heard of a case coming out of Canada
- [00:06:11.980]in which a pair or family of enslaved people came to the United States,
- [00:06:17.120]and upon the enslavers request that they be returned to them,
- [00:06:20.580]the court said that they had no jurisdiction to return fugitives,
- [00:06:24.560]quote unquote, into a foreign jurisdiction.
- [00:06:27.360]So in hearing this, the Dennison family, Elizabeth and Scipio,
- [00:06:31.700]they went to Canada where that same doctrine was being
- [00:06:34.680]practiced, securing their freedom.
- [00:06:37.300]And this case and some of the other freedom suits that come out of the lab
- [00:06:41.740]have really taught me that freedom of enslaved people,
- [00:06:45.740]it came from their own hard work.
- [00:06:48.120]It was an active thing.
- [00:06:49.400]It wasn't just given to them in many cases.
- [00:06:52.260]It was fought for.
- [00:06:54.200]And there were successes.
- [00:06:55.680]There was many success stories that our lab tries to highlight and teach
- [00:07:00.100]the general public about to make more accessible in the storytelling.
- [00:07:03.700]So that's something that's been really beautiful and impactful to learn about
- [00:07:08.400]in our work in the lab and something I'm
- [00:07:10.400]looking forward to continuing
- [00:07:11.380]learning in the future.
- [00:07:14.560]Thank you.
- [00:07:22.850]Hi, y'all. My name is Miranda Martinez.
- [00:07:25.970]I come from Texas and I go to Texas A&M Corpus Christi.
- [00:07:30.870]Today, I will be talking to y'all about Matilda.
- [00:07:34.050]Matilda was a free Black girl from St.
- [00:07:36.250]Charles, Missouri, and she filed her petition in 1815 against a man
- [00:07:41.130]named Isaac Van Bibber.
- [00:07:43.210]In her petition, she essentially says that she was granted freedom
- [00:07:47.750]through the Northwest Ordinance of 1787.
- [00:07:50.710]However, unfortunately, through the course of her life,
- [00:07:52.570]she was enslaved by a man named John Rector.
- [00:07:56.310]John Rector then proceeds to sell her to another man named Williams Christi.
- [00:08:00.530]And then Williams Christi sells her to Isaac Van Bibber, the defendant.
- [00:08:05.230]Through the case file, I also found that Matilda not only was sent to prison
- [00:08:10.270]by Van Bibber, but she also assaulted her.
- [00:08:14.670]This treatment was so cruel and inhumane that in
- [00:08:17.690]her petition, Matilda says
- [00:08:18.950]that she feared for her life.
- [00:08:21.090]All that being said, Matilda was only 13 years old.
- [00:08:25.170]Yeah. What spoke to me the most really was her age.
- [00:08:29.970]When I first read 13 years old, I like vividly
- [00:08:33.530]remember I had to read over it again because I first of all, it's 19th century
- [00:08:37.610]handwriting, so I couldn't I'm not the best at it.
- [00:08:41.710]So I had to look over it again and I realized, no, I was correct.
- [00:08:45.370]It was 13.
- [00:08:47.210]And to me, that just showed me the strength of Matilda and
- [00:08:49.650]all of the enslaved
- [00:08:50.430]people that really fought for their freedom.
- [00:08:52.610]And we're going to courts and advocating for themselves because that must not have
- [00:08:57.670]been an easy thing to do.
- [00:08:59.190]We've talked about it with Dr.
- [00:09:00.810]Jagodinsky at how these types of efforts took money.
- [00:09:04.770]It took a lot of force.
- [00:09:06.730]It took a lot of things from these people to really have
- [00:09:10.030]the strength to do it.
- [00:09:11.790]And this experience has taught me a lot about
- [00:09:14.030]that, especially because Matilda,
- [00:09:16.510]not only was she going up against her enslaver,
- [00:09:19.890]Van Bibber's attorney was
- [00:09:20.830]actually Williams Christie, one of the men that had enslaved her previously.
- [00:09:25.630]So seeing her have the strength to go against these two men that took her
- [00:09:29.670]freedom for her really spoke to me again because she was 13 years old.
- [00:09:34.090]So that was one of the most impactful things for me.
- [00:09:37.510]And in relation to U.S. law, it also showed me how much we don't know about it.
- [00:09:43.370]I had never heard about freedom suits.
- [00:09:46.370]I want to go into law.
- [00:09:47.830]And it really showed me how much of how big the gap is and what we understand
- [00:09:53.410]as the American public and what is actually in those archives.
- [00:09:56.670]Archives are not very accessible to the common American, mostly because
- [00:10:00.410]the handwriting is horrible.
- [00:10:03.670]We don't understand it sometimes.
- [00:10:06.770]So it's very hard for an average American to really seek out those sources
- [00:10:11.110]and understand them.
- [00:10:13.490]And thankfully right now we're bridging the gap with programs like the digital
- [00:10:17.150]legal research lab and everything we're doing now at UNL.
- [00:10:20.170]And I'm hopeful that in the coming years and generations, we're able to start
- [00:10:24.590]changing that narrative and having the American public really understand US law
- [00:10:29.050]because we cannot say that we know everything about U.S. law from just Supreme
- [00:10:32.990]Court rulings.
- [00:10:34.770]The law is built through the local and state.
- [00:10:37.630]And I think highlighting the freedom suits that African Americans were doing
- [00:10:41.210]in the 19th century is essential to understanding our history.
- [00:10:44.870]And I hope that we do that going forward.
- [00:10:46.830]Thank you. Here, here.
- [00:10:56.150]Isabella.
- [00:10:57.150]Hi, I'm Isabella.
- [00:10:58.690]My case was called Ann v. Haight and the
- [00:11:01.470]overarching question surrounded whether
- [00:11:03.650]Ann was free based on how she crossed state lines in her petition.
- [00:11:08.250]And claimed that she was an indentured servant to James Rain.
- [00:11:12.670]Originally from Maryland, he took her to Illinois and then to Missouri.
- [00:11:17.470]Illinois law at the time required the written consent of indentured
- [00:11:21.390]servants when their indentures took them beyond the state's borders.
- [00:11:25.910]If this consent was not provided, the indentured servant
- [00:11:29.590]was entitled to their
- [00:11:30.570]freedom along with $1,000 and argued in her petition that Rain did not obtain
- [00:11:37.550]her consent. Rain died,
- [00:11:39.430]and the executor of his estate, a man named Henry Haight asserted that she was
- [00:11:44.750]a slave for life.
- [00:11:46.290]She sued Haight for her freedom.
- [00:11:48.210]In addition to the Illinois statute and argued that she should have been free
- [00:11:53.030]because it was illegal to have indentured servants in the Northwest
- [00:11:56.110]territories hate on the other hand, argued that Ann was not an indentured
- [00:12:01.550]servant, but enslaved in the end and won her case and was freed.
- [00:12:08.150]She was awarded $5 in damages despite originally seeking
- [00:12:11.930]$500 in damages.
- [00:12:14.950]To me, what stood out about this case was Ann's legal
- [00:12:18.070]strategy in Black litigants
- [00:12:20.330]and the antebellum American South.
- [00:12:22.550]Kimberly Welch argues that one of the main strategies Black litigants used
- [00:12:26.270]was making contracts.
- [00:12:28.670]This was because white judges and juries had to consistently uphold property
- [00:12:33.470]laws in order to uphold slavery and upholding property
- [00:12:37.470]laws around contract.
- [00:12:38.810]In Ann's case, though, they had to free her and use the legal term trespass to
- [00:12:44.930]describe the injustices that she faced.
- [00:12:47.130]I did not realize until I read on the
- [00:12:49.850]legal information Institute that
- [00:12:51.810]trespass is not just a term describing physical harm, but the damage and or
- [00:12:56.710]prevention of an individual's ability to use their property or to contract.
- [00:13:01.690]I think how Ann consciously uses this strategy speaks to her ability to maintain
- [00:13:06.850]her dignity and her conviction while also being subjected to, but succeeding
- [00:13:12.250]within a system, legal system that is inherently discriminatory and
- [00:13:16.910]dehumanizing to her.
- [00:13:19.330]Thank you.
- [00:13:27.370]We look forward to hearing questions after we've heard from all of the
- [00:13:31.190]undergrads.
- [00:13:32.030]So thank you to all of you for leading us off and we'll bring up our next
- [00:13:35.490]group, Zoe, Madison, and Veronica, please introduce yourselves and your home
- [00:13:49.470]institutions before you go into your case.
- [00:13:57.520]Hello, everyone.
- [00:13:58.180]I'm Zoe Williams.
- [00:13:59.580]I'm a rising sophomore at Howard University, where I
- [00:14:02.360]study political science
- [00:14:03.220]and I'm originally from Illinois.
- [00:14:05.860]The case I've been working on for the past few weeks was Paul Jones, first
- [00:14:09.260]George W. Jones, where Paul Jones was an enslaved man
- [00:14:12.880]petitioning for his freedom
- [00:14:13.960]from the defendant, George W. Jones.
- [00:14:16.700]Paul Jones was originally enslaved in Illinois by a French family, the Lacomptes,
- [00:14:21.380]and was then sold to George W. Jones, who resided in Missouri.
- [00:14:25.160]I was specifically looking at interrogatives of three
- [00:14:28.720]men throughout this
- [00:14:29.380]case, Louis F. Lynn, John Scott, and Lloyd Comte.
- [00:14:33.500]These interrogatives contain a variety of questions from asking them if they're
- [00:14:37.300]familiar with the defendant's handwriting to
- [00:14:39.880]their attendance when the bill of
- [00:14:42.000]sale was executed, but there was a heightened sense on location in these
- [00:14:46.040]questions because prior to this case being brought to court, the Northwest
- [00:14:50.200]Ordinance had came into effect.
- [00:14:53.900]And such a large emphasis was placed on location
- [00:14:56.300]because Paul's mother was
- [00:14:57.740]enslaved in the Northwest Territory, where Paul was born, Prairie du
- [00:15:01.000]Wiltshire, which was a village of French and Canadian
- [00:15:04.720]territory, and a general
- [00:15:07.160]and an argument that was made by the defendant and that
- [00:15:10.420]there was this large
- [00:15:11.180]general understanding that Paul is what was
- [00:15:13.800]referred to as a French slave, and
- [00:15:16.140]therefore the Northwest Ordinance did not apply
- [00:15:18.320]to him and did not free him.
- [00:15:20.340]And this brings up a larger question of how
- [00:15:22.980]the Northwest Ordinance impacted
- [00:15:25.040]slavery or did not impact slavery, because I think there's a general
- [00:15:28.940]misunderstanding that the Northwest Ordinance
- [00:15:30.780]liberated people in the North
- [00:15:32.380]or it banned slavery in the North, but the Northwest Ordinance, it was
- [00:15:37.380]perspective, it wasn't applied right then and there, and it also did not
- [00:15:42.540]apply to women who were enslaved, descendants of enslaved women, or people
- [00:15:47.500]who were enslaved under Canadian or French rule.
- [00:15:50.340]So who does that leave?
- [00:15:51.980]We're like practically nobody.
- [00:15:56.100]And so taken away from this case of Paul Jones versus George
- [00:16:02.260]W. Jones, it really
- [00:16:03.180]showed me how the legal upholding of slavery is embedded everywhere, even in
- [00:16:12.030]an ordinance where it said it was going to outlaw slavery and these, when
- [00:16:17.490]slavery is being given a structural upstanding everywhere,
- [00:16:20.630]it's what makes
- [00:16:21.110]these cases and people like Paul Jones, it was just what makes it so incredibly
- [00:16:26.550]hard to, uh, acute justice and achieve liberation.
- [00:16:30.990]So thank you.
- [00:16:40.440]Hello, my name's Madison Mendiola and I'm from the University of North Florida.
- [00:16:44.860]I'm a political science and a philosophy double major.
- [00:16:47.560]So I worked on the same case as Zoe here, and I kind of wanted to provide
- [00:16:51.140]like, because in this case, there was a plaintiff and the defendant.
- [00:16:54.720]So I'm going to try to provide a bit more of a story about Paul Jones.
- [00:16:58.300]I first off want to say that like this case was a bit of a puzzle to travel
- [00:17:02.360]through because it is full of just interrogatories.
- [00:17:05.460]Like we didn't get any sort of judgment on the court.
- [00:17:07.680]We don't know how like this ended up for them.
- [00:17:10.460]It is just a bunch of testimony that is a lot of people kind of talking over each
- [00:17:15.000]other in this sense, trying to each provide a narrative for either the
- [00:17:18.040]plaintiff or the defendant.
- [00:17:19.240]So what I could tell from Paul Jones is his argument is sort of sees the
- [00:17:23.600]plaintiff, so he is suing on trespass, which as has been kind of described
- [00:17:28.780]as it just means like trespassing on property, but like also just the
- [00:17:32.460]argument of property itself.
- [00:17:34.200]And he seems to be asking to be recovered for back
- [00:17:36.600]pay because he's claiming
- [00:17:38.160]himself to be a free man who was walking under George W.
- [00:17:42.820]Jones and was not getting
- [00:17:44.620]paid and so some of the arguments that, or some of the testimony that we got from
- [00:17:48.620]another person, Thomas McKnight, was saying
- [00:17:51.280]that Paul Jones had walked under
- [00:17:53.640]him and was being paid.
- [00:17:55.660]And so this argument in this entire case itself is a freedom suit and almost a bit
- [00:18:00.240]of a roundabout manner because it didn't start off with Paul Jones making some
- [00:18:04.660]sort of argument about how he should be free or that like, or some argument over
- [00:18:09.840]slavery and statement in general, but also just that he was owed this money
- [00:18:14.640]because this is as to also bring back Kimberly Welch's
- [00:18:18.020]book, Black Litigants
- [00:18:19.300]in the Antebellum South.
- [00:18:20.740]This was a property rights as civil rights type of case
- [00:18:24.760]here, where he's saying
- [00:18:26.020]that if he, if the court finds that he is owed this money, that he has these
- [00:18:31.640]rights, for starters, just that he's already
- [00:18:33.880]in court itself shows that he is
- [00:18:35.640]someone with rights.
- [00:18:37.200]And so these cases were a way for Black litigants
- [00:18:40.700]to establish themselves as
- [00:18:43.520]having rights because according to the laws
- [00:18:46.420]there that, and saved men had no
- [00:18:48.180]rights.
- [00:18:49.480]And so I think this is a really interesting case
- [00:18:51.480]because it shows that
- [00:18:53.160]like, just the savviness that the Black community were able to use with the
- [00:18:58.540]legal system, that they knew how it worked, were able to use these property
- [00:19:02.800]rights arguments to gain empathy from a white and frankly racist judge and jury
- [00:19:07.580]that would not be empathetic to the arguments of a Black man normally.
- [00:19:12.180]And also just back on the idea that these were
- [00:19:14.720]all like interrogatories, that
- [00:19:16.040]it's important to understand legal history again, not just from the Supreme
- [00:19:20.100]Court opinions, but from all of these narratives that intertwine and just
- [00:19:23.800]kind of digging through it.
- [00:19:25.160]So it's, it's much a label, but I think it's one that would prove to be very
- [00:19:28.600]beneficial in reshaping the common narratives
- [00:19:31.520]that of history that we have
- [00:19:32.700]now.
- [00:19:33.400]Thank you.
- [00:19:40.250]Good afternoon, everyone.
- [00:19:42.210]My name is Veronica Sargbah.
- [00:19:43.630]I go here at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
- [00:19:46.030]I studied Landscape Architecture with a minor in History.
- [00:19:51.690]This is my like 10th or so month on the team.
- [00:19:56.930]So I got to work with Dr.
- [00:19:58.270]Jagodinsky throughout the regular semester and stuff like that.
- [00:20:02.550]So the case that I got picked was Spheres v.
- [00:20:06.290]Choteau, which is taking place in the St.
- [00:20:08.990]Louis, Missouri area, which my other caseload
- [00:20:11.230]that I have also takes place in.
- [00:20:13.410]It kind of follows the suit that Teresa and George Spears, who are both
- [00:20:18.590]freed mixed race persons who reside in St.
- [00:20:22.590]Louis, they're filing a suit to re-secure Teresa's grandmother's
- [00:20:27.410]real estate that
- [00:20:28.810]she willed and testament to all of her grandchildren
- [00:20:32.030]before she passed away.
- [00:20:34.030]She also willed in testament the rest of her estate to two other people that
- [00:20:38.530]she know throughout her life.
- [00:20:40.630]She wrote this testament on November 9th, 1831.
- [00:20:46.250]After her passing on October 3rd, 1833, she didn't revoke or change
- [00:20:51.910]anything in her will before then.
- [00:20:53.670]So naturally they decided to start splitting it amongst her
- [00:20:56.910]grandchildren and those other two people, but
- [00:20:58.770]then later found out that one of her
- [00:21:02.470]grandchildren ended up passing away and leaving
- [00:21:04.350]one fourth of her estate kind of
- [00:21:06.170]up for grabs.
- [00:21:07.070]Naturally, they decided to settle it amongst his other three siblings, but
- [00:21:11.210]they later on found out that somebody who used to enact on Esther's behalf
- [00:21:17.570]named Jacquise Clamigan, who is also a part of the family that she was
- [00:21:24.290]previously enslaved to forged, not one, not
- [00:21:28.670]two, but five deeds on her estate.
- [00:21:32.850]Kind of initially assuming that pretty much they cannot share her estate
- [00:21:36.350]amongst her grandchildren because his family owns it.
- [00:21:40.470]While Esther was alive, she did know about these five forged deeds.
- [00:21:45.110]She did tell Clamigan that she did not want those deeds to be forged, but
- [00:21:49.410]he still went ahead.
- [00:21:51.070]So that is why pretty much Teresa and her husband are kind of filing to
- [00:21:56.910]resecured the estate so they can properly share it amongst the people that
- [00:22:00.990]were put into the will and testament.
- [00:22:03.270]Where Peter Shoto comes in, Peter Shoto's family is the founding family of
- [00:22:08.730]St. Louis, so they kind of have overseeing over all the land.
- [00:22:12.870]So it was kind of his job to kind of negate who gets
- [00:22:16.870]to share the land evenly
- [00:22:18.650]despite there being already a will and testament in writing by Esther on who
- [00:22:23.910]gets the land.
- [00:22:25.170]Later on in the case, the Spears family is permitted to
- [00:22:28.570]share the land based
- [00:22:30.410]off of the way that Esther wanted it to be permitted despite one of her
- [00:22:34.470]grandchildren passing after her.
- [00:22:37.230]This is not my first case, but I never ceased to be surprised.
- [00:22:44.070]One thing that I've learned as going through this is a lot of people, they
- [00:22:49.510]have this conception that because of slavery, Black people and other
- [00:22:54.510]marginalized people at the time didn't really have access to the justice
- [00:22:58.550]system and things of that nature, because those were kind of the things
- [00:23:01.330]that were permitting them in their status of the time.
- [00:23:05.090]But kind of seeing the way how they utilize these different type of case
- [00:23:09.190]types, because I do work with Dr.
- [00:23:11.170]Jagodinsky, so I do get to see the freedom suits through habeas corpus is
- [00:23:14.830]very unique.
- [00:23:16.910]And the caseload that I'm actually working on throughout the school year
- [00:23:20.190]and throughout this process with Lydia Titus and who is using habeas corpus
- [00:23:26.010]to regain the freedom of her five children from her previous enslavers.
- [00:23:30.650]They do also involve the Choteau family kind of talking about, you know,
- [00:23:34.690]like whether these regions are slave regions and things of that nature.
- [00:23:39.710]It kind of just allows doing this work allows us as a whole to humanize
- [00:23:45.750]these people.
- [00:23:46.570]We don't see them as numbers or statistics.
- [00:23:48.930]They're people with lives who had injustices put against them.
- [00:23:53.590]So I just really enjoy this job despite my very unique work of study as a
- [00:23:59.470]landscape architecture major.
- [00:24:01.670]Um, yeah, like people always ask me like, oh, you know, like, why are you here?
- [00:24:05.170]Um, I mainly decide that I want to go into like preservation of historic
- [00:24:09.130]buildings and sites and stuff like that.
- [00:24:10.650]So this is kind of like my connection to this.
- [00:24:13.030]This was like a cute little side job, but now I enjoy it a lot.
- [00:24:18.150]A ringing endorsement.
- [00:24:19.710]Thank you.
- [00:24:26.860]We'll go ahead and transition to our next group of undergraduates.
- [00:24:32.540]Uh, we're going to hear from Ryan, Ethan, and Roshawnna.
- [00:24:36.040]Hey everybody.
- [00:24:37.140]Uh, my name is Ryan.
- [00:24:38.380]I'm my home university is at a Washington State University
- [00:24:41.380]in, in Washington State.
- [00:24:43.520]Uh, I was working on this case, uh, Edward Gantt v.
- [00:24:47.260]Thomas Baldwin, uh, with
- [00:24:49.220]Ethan, we worked on it together.
- [00:24:51.040]Uh, this one's a little bit different.
- [00:24:53.540]Uh, it's, it's a case, um, where two or one, one enslaver is suing another
- [00:25:00.100]enslaver, um, it's, it's been a little bit challenging
- [00:25:03.800]to determine exactly
- [00:25:04.600]what's going on in this case.
- [00:25:06.500]Um, we only have a handful of documents.
- [00:25:10.160]Uh, we have, we have the two pleas.
- [00:25:12.320]Uh, we have the plea of the plaintiff, uh, Edward Gantt and we have, uh, the plea
- [00:25:17.360]of the defendant, Thomas Baldwin.
- [00:25:18.660]Uh, we have two depositions, uh, for two witnesses, both of which, uh, we're
- [00:25:24.160]testifying for the defendant.
- [00:25:25.680]So we have no witness testimony for, uh, for the plaintiff.
- [00:25:29.220]Uh, and we had a handful of summons to look at, which aren't really all that
- [00:25:32.960]helpful and kind of piecing together what was happening in the case.
- [00:25:36.900]Um, what we understand that was going on is that Edward Gantt or sorry, Edward
- [00:25:42.220]Gantt, um, lost, uh, that's the language that's used, uh, a woman that he was
- [00:25:47.940]enslaving, uh, named Fanny while he was aboard a steamboat, uh, that was being
- [00:25:52.260]capped, that was captained by Thomas Baldwin.
- [00:25:56.060]Uh, Gantt is claiming that Baldwin found her on the boat, uh, knew that she
- [00:26:01.180]was, uh, enslaved by, by Gantt, uh, refused to give her back to him after
- [00:26:06.300]being asked numerous times, uh, and essentially kept her for himself.
- [00:26:11.020]Um, Ethan will go into a little bit more about the language, the specific
- [00:26:13.900]language that was used for that and what that could potentially mean.
- [00:26:18.340]Um, and Edward Gantt was suing Thomas Baldwin for $1,500 in damages as well as
- [00:26:23.360]the return of Fanny to him, uh, and Baldwin in his plea, uh, denied all
- [00:26:27.580]parts of this accusation, um, both of the depositions, uh, one was of one of
- [00:26:34.040]the clerks on the boat, uh, John Burt, uh, and the other
- [00:26:37.280]was James Gilmore, who was
- [00:26:38.500]a mate, um, and again, both these people were testifying on behalf of Thomas
- [00:26:45.520]Baldwin, and their depositions talked about,
- [00:26:47.380]um, as part of their jobs,
- [00:26:48.760]routinely, uh, searching the boat, doing rounds around the boat and, uh, saying
- [00:26:52.760]that, uh, at no point did they see, uh, Fanny on board anywhere.
- [00:26:58.080]Um, additionally, uh, as part of, uh, John Burt's testimony, uh, he said that
- [00:27:02.940]he inquired with the numerous, uh, free and enslaved people of color who, who
- [00:27:07.660]worked on the boat, um, who said that, who also said,
- [00:27:12.220]according to him, that
- [00:27:13.260]they did not see Fanny anywhere during their own searches or while they
- [00:27:17.920]were doing their job.
- [00:27:19.420]Uh, and I think this is, this is the most important part of the case to, to
- [00:27:24.280]both me and Ethan, I think, uh, because while, while this wasn't a freedom
- [00:27:28.000]suit per se, um, it does still show that, um, um, that
- [00:27:34.560]enslaved people of color
- [00:27:35.640]were being active participants in the legal system, uh, they were used in
- [00:27:39.800]testimony by these witnesses to be used as evidence in court.
- [00:27:44.640]Um, it's a slightly different way of them being included as the other suits,
- [00:27:48.580]of course, but, um, I think it is still, um, something that,
- [00:27:52.020]um, adds to the, to
- [00:27:55.640]the work of what we're doing and what we're trying to show.
- [00:27:58.000]Um, we, we don't know the outcome of the case.
- [00:28:00.900]Uh, we have no idea who won.
- [00:28:02.240]We have no idea, uh, really where Fanny was, what was going on.
- [00:28:07.320]Um, yeah, there wasn't a whole lot of information
- [00:28:10.640]within the documents that
- [00:28:11.600]we had, but that's, that's what we know.
- [00:28:22.970]Um, good afternoon, everyone and Happy Juneteenth.
- [00:28:26.190]Uh, my name is Ethan Reiter and I am from the University of Kansas and I'm
- [00:28:30.870]dual majoring in History and Education.
- [00:28:34.670]And, um, as Ryan said, I worked on the Edward v. Gantt, um, or Baldwin
- [00:28:39.290]v. Gantt case with him, Gantt v. Baldwin.
- [00:28:43.190]And, uh, and, uh, what we found interesting in our reading of the case
- [00:28:49.570]documents was how language was utilized to racialize and protect the
- [00:28:53.830]idea of enslaved peoples as property while simultaneously glossing
- [00:28:58.170]over the, uh, horrors of slavery.
- [00:29:00.850]Um, so for example, uh, Fanny, as Ryan mentioned, was a mixed race
- [00:29:05.130]enslaved woman who was described as a mulatto in the court documents.
- [00:29:08.770]And Anderson Lewis and assistant steward on the steamboat was identified
- [00:29:13.370]as yellow, uh, which at the time was another identifier of
- [00:29:17.390]a mixed race person.
- [00:29:18.910]And I found these identifications unique as
- [00:29:22.270]it seemed there was a much more
- [00:29:23.730]concentrated focus on properly representing the phenotype of Anderson
- [00:29:28.430]and Fanny as compared to the early 20th century, where the one drop rule in
- [00:29:33.410]the South identified Blackness more as a monolith to identify the other.
- [00:29:40.410]Um, and I was talking about some of these ideas with Dr.
- [00:29:44.390]Jagodinsky and in my mind, and kind of what I learned through reading the
- [00:29:48.250]case prior to emancipation, it seemed like enslavement was a system
- [00:29:52.890]based around individuals and that enslavers used these specific
- [00:29:57.490]descriptors to identify individuals that they claimed as property and being
- [00:30:02.270]exact was a way in which they justified
- [00:30:04.530]their claimed ownership.
- [00:30:06.710]And then after emancipation, the definition of, of Blackness seemed to
- [00:30:10.770]be expanded to include mixed race peoples as white supremacy shifted to
- [00:30:15.390]use Blackness as a target that should be segregated
- [00:30:17.990]against and denied justice.
- [00:30:20.890]And through that kind of dichotomy, um, I noticed that in both these instances,
- [00:30:25.650]the identification of Black peoples by whites was consistently
- [00:30:29.230]leveraged to further white supremacy.
- [00:30:32.450]The case itself is also made under a plea of trespass,
- [00:30:36.710]which confused me initially
- [00:30:37.990]because I saw no mention of the defendant trespassing
- [00:30:41.170]on the plaintiff's
- [00:30:42.090]land until, um, Ryan astutely realized this case,
- [00:30:46.230]regarded a trespassing of the plaintiff's supposed property being Fanny.
- [00:30:50.390]The language in the case also frequently takes neutral and
- [00:30:53.490]attached stances on the horrors of slavery for one saying that Fanny was
- [00:30:57.490]lost rather than saying she escaped.
- [00:30:59.930]And also saying that Thomas Baldwin then found Fanny and committed and
- [00:31:03.430]disposed of Fanny to his own uses, which most probably
- [00:31:06.930]means re-enslavement and rape.
- [00:31:09.190]While we found it difficult to decipher this type of inhumanity in the text,
- [00:31:13.670]we were still very appreciative of the lessons
- [00:31:15.870]we learned and how to interpret these cases
- [00:31:17.770]and turn the archaic language and accounts into stories of
- [00:31:22.270]liberation for Black people.
- [00:31:24.430]And in the future, we look forward to utilizing
- [00:31:26.970]these lessons while developing
- [00:31:28.390]our own research projects for this summer and for our academic careers as a whole.
- [00:31:33.450]Thank you so much.
- [00:31:43.370]Good afternoon, everyone.
- [00:31:44.790]My name is Roshawnna Brinkley.
- [00:31:46.090]I'm from Baltimore, Maryland, and I go to the University
- [00:31:48.450]of Maryland, College Park.
- [00:31:50.210]And today my case is on the Felix Quander newspapers.
- [00:31:53.850]So the main issue that I want to discuss in today's panel is
- [00:31:56.870]the issue of police brutality
- [00:31:58.190]and the unwarranted harm and violence inflicted
- [00:32:01.050]onto the Quander family on February 16th, 1879.
- [00:32:05.330]On this day, the Quander were subjected to horrors.
- [00:32:08.690]And we call this in today's society police brutality,
- [00:32:12.230]even though the term was coined in the 1870s by the Chicago Tribune.
- [00:32:17.470]And this is honestly a failure of justice and liberty,
- [00:32:21.110]or as the Swanton Courier called it, "a pure
- [00:32:24.390]persecution under official sanction."
- [00:32:27.670]Mr. Felix Quander and his wife, Julia Quander, his two sons
- [00:32:30.970]and an unnamed visitor
- [00:32:32.350]were in their house on Sunday, February 16th, 1879, when Constable
- [00:32:37.250]J. H. Sartin arrived with
- [00:32:39.470]a posse of 35 supporting officers because Quander
- [00:32:42.015]and his wife were accused of stealing poultry.
- [00:32:47.150]Sartian announced his presence and demanded that Quander come
- [00:32:49.570]downstairs to be arrested.
- [00:32:51.510]Quander refused, and Sartin then proceeded to fire at the house, which failed.
- [00:32:56.510]Then this led him to fire inside of the house, striking everyone.
- [00:33:00.990]At least 35 shots were fired inside of the home.
- [00:33:04.850]Quander was injured. Quander's son, Felix Quander Jr., was injured the worst and
- [00:33:09.630]incorrectly presumed dead. This is the most shocking and gruesome part.
- [00:33:14.850]The Constable did not render or procure any aid to those shot.
- [00:33:19.110]And the injury remained in that condition from 6
- [00:33:21.370]o'clock p.m. to 4 o'clock a.m. in the morning.
- [00:33:24.390]And in their terrible conditions, they were
- [00:33:26.030]still made to appear before the magistrate.
- [00:33:30.080]Honestly, this case is not shocking because, you know,
- [00:33:34.240]we've seen a lot of police brutality in the last, like, decade or so.
- [00:33:38.820]So I wanted to connect this to the case of Breonna Taylor because
- [00:33:42.660]police in modern instances have
- [00:33:44.640]forcefully used abuse and opened fire into black residences.
- [00:33:52.840]Even though the officers had a warrant, this unnecessary violence was
- [00:33:56.380]used to harm individuals
- [00:33:57.460]of color. So this, obviously, is an element of gross police misconduct.
- [00:34:05.920]The use of a large posse of 35 men and discharging of a
- [00:34:10.179]firearm caused serious bodily harm.
- [00:34:14.199]And this connects to the color of law, something done beyond the
- [00:34:18.080]bounds or lawful authority,
- [00:34:19.900]or to strip rights of the color of individuals, rights, and privileges
- [00:34:25.840]done by a Constable
- [00:34:27.400]Sartin. So this honestly showed me that post-reconstruction, it takes
- [00:34:31.960]down the narrative that
- [00:34:33.020]Black people's lives were so much better and progressive after slavery
- [00:34:37.679]and adoption of the
- [00:34:40.060]13th Amendment because we still had instances
- [00:34:42.179]of, like, mass violence among people of color.
- [00:34:47.020]They were still subjugated and hyperpoliced
- [00:34:50.880]in areas under the pretense of loss.
- [00:34:53.360]And these Constables, like, were not there to
- [00:34:56.679]serve and protect as they took the oath to.
- [00:35:00.380]They were here to control the narrative that
- [00:35:04.860]white supremacy and white order was still in effect.
- [00:35:08.980]So I think, honestly, that Black people face
- [00:35:11.900]a unique stressor in their environment such as
- [00:35:14.120]racial discrimination, unjust laws, and violence, and enforcement of practices.
- [00:35:20.180]But in all, honestly, when I was reading the newspaper articles
- [00:35:23.780]like that one above
- [00:35:24.960]that described the horrors of this event, I
- [00:35:28.340]noticed that there was a very fine line between
- [00:35:31.640]what the Democratic Papers said and then what
- [00:35:34.080]the Republican Papers said. So the Democratic Papers
- [00:35:37.360]villainized Quander and his family in claims
- [00:35:40.140]that the shooting was justified using abhorrent
- [00:35:42.600]language to describe the family, blaming him
- [00:35:47.240]for getting shot by saying his cattle ran
- [00:35:49.340]loose and they were resisting arrest, common
- [00:35:52.160]narrative that we see today. And this honestly
- [00:35:55.020]gave them justification to just discharge 35
- [00:35:58.040]shots. So the Republican paper kind of humanized
- [00:36:02.320]the event as a horrible breach of law and an act of racial
- [00:36:05.920]violence. And this was unwarranted
- [00:36:08.340]violence that went beyond the officer's legal
- [00:36:10.280]realm and analyzed how the defendants were brought
- [00:36:13.100]in and how proper medical treatment was not displayed. And they
- [00:36:19.440]were still in bondage,
- [00:36:20.500]even when they were on basically life support.
- [00:36:24.800]These issues highlight how the cases like these
- [00:36:26.680]should still be talked about and observed because
- [00:36:28.760]it's common to say, oh, police brutality is such
- [00:36:31.780]a modern thing when in fact it's not. This happened in 1879.
- [00:36:36.420]So thank you for listening.
- [00:36:38.360]We would love to give you an opportunity to ask any
- [00:36:41.320]questions or any feedback.
- [00:36:45.720]So just to repeat the question for everyone, the
- [00:36:48.660]question is how the students will draw on these
- [00:36:51.980]cases and other materials in the collection
- [00:36:54.500]to think about contemporary issues facing communities
- [00:37:00.240]of color and society generally. And you're all welcome to Veronica.
- [00:37:09.630]As an architecture major, a lot of people don't really understand how
- [00:37:15.330]much like structures and
- [00:37:17.710]sites really affect mainly marginalized people, especially
- [00:37:22.210]when it comes to the common conversation
- [00:37:23.690]of gentrification. Like most of the Lincoln
- [00:37:27.470]population of the UNL population, I'm from Omaha
- [00:37:30.110]and a lot of Omaha is being renovated. And a
- [00:37:33.870]lot of the parts of Omaha that used to be pretty
- [00:37:36.510]accessible, but not the best of shape to people
- [00:37:41.490]of color are being renovated and turned into a
- [00:37:44.330]more modern city. But the prices are also skyrocketing. And I feel
- [00:37:48.530]like with gaining this
- [00:37:49.610]type of knowledge, it kind of gives me more of
- [00:37:51.370]a sense of empathy, not from a personal stance as
- [00:37:54.130]a Black woman, but also from the stance of I'm looking at these cases,
- [00:37:58.790]I have to learn language
- [00:37:59.990]that makes these people more humanized because, you
- [00:38:05.710]know, I didn't really learn that in my regular
- [00:38:07.790]K through 12 education and stuff like that. And it
- [00:38:10.650]kind of allows me to bring in a new perspective
- [00:38:12.770]onto architecture of how pretty much even though
- [00:38:16.410]these structures aren't meant to be, you know,
- [00:38:20.690]separative or racist, they still can be. And that
- [00:38:24.430]really allows me to bring in a new perspective
- [00:38:26.250]that not many of my others, other peers may have because they
- [00:38:30.010]have the privilege of just
- [00:38:31.310]looking away or they have the privilege of coming from a little
- [00:38:34.910]bit nicer places. So yeah,
- [00:38:38.310]to come. So do you want to add to that? So with what these cases
- [00:38:46.600]have shown me personally in
- [00:38:50.040]a broader legal context is that, you know, the
- [00:38:53.560]legal system in America has been rooted in white
- [00:38:56.620]supremacy since its inception. And even in the
- [00:38:59.700]cases where, you know, there were supposed freedoms
- [00:39:01.800]like with the Northwest Ordinance that prohibited
- [00:39:05.060]slavery, there were still, you know, these legal
- [00:39:08.060]quote unquote loopholes that barred enslaved people
- [00:39:11.200]from their rights and autonomy as human
- [00:39:13.260]beings. And so I think something that we can
- [00:39:15.000]draw upon in contemporary times is the way in which
- [00:39:18.760]these people of color kind of navigated those legal loopholes, navigated
- [00:39:23.500]the system that was
- [00:39:24.580]obviously stacked against them to try to gain
- [00:39:26.900]their freedom. And in many cases were successful
- [00:39:29.040]to gain their freedom. And so if we draw on
- [00:39:31.040]that, we can see and mirror into contemporary times how
- [00:39:35.060]to navigate the legal systems that are stacked
- [00:39:36.940]against us and how to become successful in
- [00:39:39.320]advocating for our rights, our communities and
- [00:39:42.020]ourselves. So yeah. Thank you. Great question.
- [00:39:53.100]Others. Oh, yeah. We'll bring in Walt. So I'll
- [00:40:09.280]just introduce Walt Arneal as a UNL student on the
- [00:40:12.040]team. And he just happens to have needed to be
- [00:40:14.480]out the last two days. So we didn't put him up
- [00:40:16.180]in front, but he is more than happy apparently to
- [00:40:18.480]join in. All right. Hi, guys. Yeah. So I'm a
- [00:40:22.900]social sciences education major here. And so I've had
- [00:40:26.140]the unique experience to spend a lot of time
- [00:40:28.120]in my classes talking about what it means to
- [00:40:30.800]be critically literate, as we say, in an education
- [00:40:35.100]context. Because obviously as teachers, you really
- [00:40:39.300]need to understand what you're talking about and
- [00:40:42.360]be very correct in what you're saying. And so,
- [00:40:45.560]for example, with this, it kind of dispels a myth
- [00:40:48.640]that even I heard a couple of years ago when I was sitting in
- [00:40:51.620]my high school classrooms that
- [00:40:52.980]you kind of hear this story that, you know, Abraham Lincoln emancipated
- [00:40:57.900]the slaves. And then
- [00:40:59.140]there were mean people in the South. And then Martin Luther King
- [00:41:01.900]came along and he fixed
- [00:41:02.980]everything. And I mean, I feel like that's a pretty
- [00:41:05.780]similar story to what a lot of us have heard.
- [00:41:08.040]But having these cases and having all of this where
- [00:41:11.600]even you can see 50 to 100 years before Abraham
- [00:41:17.000]Lincoln even spoke of the Emancipation Proclamation that
- [00:41:21.040]we have Black people who are sitting here and
- [00:41:23.300]they are able to go into a legal court and they're able to fight
- [00:41:27.360]against their enslavement. And being
- [00:41:29.560]able to take that and what I know and being
- [00:41:31.960]able to apply that even into a classroom context when
- [00:41:34.760]I speak to my students about what it means to
- [00:41:38.920]be an American and what it means to have a
- [00:41:46.120]civil right. It's definitely something that has
- [00:41:49.080]developed and changed over the years, but
- [00:41:51.020]definitely is an imperative thing to understand and
- [00:41:54.380]to teach to the next generation of Americans.
- [00:42:06.620]Yeah. So I have two questions actually. One is
- [00:42:10.440]pointed for Ryan and Ethan. Let me get it pulled
- [00:42:14.680]up. You said your case involved an enslaved
- [00:42:18.640]person that was on a steamboat right in Missouri,
- [00:42:21.800]was it? Was it on the Mississippi? It was on the Ohio River. My geography of
- [00:42:31.980]the Midwest is not great, not coming from the Midwest. Does that
- [00:42:34.660]border Illinois? I think it
- [00:42:41.140]does. Okay. I'm going to assume that it is. I'm
- [00:42:43.820]not positive. I don't want to give people the wrong
- [00:42:47.420]answers. The reason I ask is I was just wondering if the since rivers
- [00:42:53.480]often act as borders between
- [00:42:55.740]states and Missouri being often mostly bordering with
- [00:42:59.280]free states, if that played a role in the
- [00:43:01.040]case at all, if you could tell. It's difficult
- [00:43:07.010]to say since the testimony kind of conflicted with
- [00:43:10.450]each other as to where Fanny was, but it did
- [00:43:14.470]not seem that the boat stopped at all in between
- [00:43:16.810]like the state borders or crossings. The trip
- [00:43:20.150]itself was from St. Louis to Louisville. And once
- [00:43:23.310]they got to Louisville, they realized, well, Gantt
- [00:43:26.990]sued thinking that Fanny was still on board and
- [00:43:29.850]they were not able to find her. So just from the information
- [00:43:32.590]we have, unfortunately, it's difficult
- [00:43:33.870]to discern exactly like what her thoughts were or
- [00:43:36.570]what the plan was. But somewhere along the way,
- [00:43:39.210]I would assume at Louisville's port, she was able
- [00:43:42.470]to escape and self emancipate. But it's hard to say
- [00:43:45.350]with what we had, unfortunately. Okay. Awesome. Thank
- [00:43:47.650]you. And then my other question was for
- [00:43:49.150]everyone, which was having looked at these cases
- [00:43:53.030]in these freedom suits, have your opinion of like
- [00:43:56.330]how the American law system works or the application of American
- [00:44:00.630]law changed at all?
- [00:44:05.340]Hi, I'm just going to be like blunt and honest. No, because I've
- [00:44:10.460]always thought the U.S. legal
- [00:44:12.080]system was racist and abhorrently like skewed to
- [00:44:15.700]favor like white thoughts and like white society.
- [00:44:19.220]So this kind of like confirmed it even more.
- [00:44:22.440]Like even my research at the Maryland State Archives,
- [00:44:24.940]when I did my case on how Black people weren't treated in
- [00:44:30.340]Baltimore Penitentiary, this just kind
- [00:44:32.640]of like, like reinforced my view. I'd kind of like
- [00:44:40.600]to add my view to that too, just like from
- [00:44:43.760]some of the reading, something that kind of
- [00:44:46.860]inspired was a bit inspirational at this time,
- [00:44:50.160]was that law was a lot closer to the people.
- [00:44:53.920]So like some of the readings we were going through
- [00:44:56.240]is talking about like how these communities would go
- [00:44:58.420]and they would watch trials and they would learn
- [00:45:01.540]like how the law operated. And so like today,
- [00:45:04.740]a lot of the legal system is seen as separate,
- [00:45:08.140]that there's like, you know, you go to the court
- [00:45:10.300]maybe to get like a for your parking ticket or
- [00:45:12.660]for a speeding ticket, but like otherwise that's
- [00:45:15.340]something you leave to like the lawyers. And I
- [00:45:17.220]think it, I mean, I think there might be maybe like a message
- [00:45:20.060]there about keeping that thing
- [00:45:21.540]separate because that is how we let a lot of like the legal
- [00:45:25.660]system be this very prestigious,
- [00:45:27.660]like prestige dominated area that has this huge wall when
- [00:45:32.140]it probably really shouldn't.
- [00:45:37.680]Real quick, I'd also like to second Roshawnna's
- [00:45:39.600]point that I did not find it necessarily surprising
- [00:45:41.940]that U.S. law, especially at this time was racially stacked against Black
- [00:45:45.780]people. But as Walt mentioned,
- [00:45:49.020]what I think, at least I found surprising and very enlightening was
- [00:45:53.360]that despite how stacked
- [00:45:55.300]against these enslaved and free Black people, it
- [00:45:58.000]was that they continue to leverage the law in
- [00:46:00.980]their favor and that they continue to win in
- [00:46:03.780]many instances. And I think that was probably one of
- [00:46:07.880]the most empowering revelations that I discovered while
- [00:46:11.080]working in this lab. And I think that that's
- [00:46:13.800]why it's very easy to, you know, as Walt said, kind of
- [00:46:16.740]characterize, you know, Abraham Lincoln
- [00:46:18.600]and Martin Luther King, because people sometimes
- [00:46:22.240]place these categories of enslavement and then,
- [00:46:25.200]you know, Jim Crow, where, you know, many textbooks and
- [00:46:30.280]teachers don't really recognize
- [00:46:31.780]that there could be actions taken by Black people to
- [00:46:34.320]fight against those systems
- [00:46:35.420]that were so set up against them. But they did continuously, which,
- [00:46:39.720]you know, I honestly didn't,
- [00:46:42.940]I kind of took for granted how racist those systems
- [00:46:46.060]would be and assume that people would not be so
- [00:46:48.580]strong and fight against them as they were.
- [00:46:50.020]So I was very happy to have learned that.
- [00:46:52.860]I guess to counteract that, yes, it has changed a
- [00:46:58.540]lot. I feel like my perception on American law has
- [00:47:01.400]been changing the older I got, the older I've gotten. My parents
- [00:47:05.840]are both immigrants. They
- [00:47:07.680]immigrated here from Liberia in 2003 and being raised as a
- [00:47:14.380]first-generation American, I was
- [00:47:16.240]raised to be very hyper patriotic, you know,
- [00:47:20.720]be grateful, you know, land of opportunity and all
- [00:47:25.080]those things like that. And being in school kind
- [00:47:27.700]of taught me, like, why I should also enjoy the
- [00:47:30.820]kind of freedoms that I do have because my family back home doesn't
- [00:47:34.120]really get those types of
- [00:47:35.160]freedoms, specifically with things like freedom of
- [00:47:37.700]speech and freedom of expression and all those
- [00:47:39.920]things like that. But as I've gone through and
- [00:47:43.240]got to live the heights of my years watching
- [00:47:47.440]injustices from things like things like my phone
- [00:47:51.520]and social media, I've come to learn, you know,
- [00:47:54.900]there's really not too too much to be grateful for.
- [00:47:58.180]And as I go, you know, I try to educate my
- [00:48:01.020]parents and those things like that. But my perspective has really begun
- [00:48:05.180]to took an extra
- [00:48:06.400]turn as I look through these cases and things
- [00:48:08.280]of that nature because it really makes me see the
- [00:48:11.360]perspective of, like, these injustices are way more gruesome
- [00:48:15.860]than we learn in K through 12 and even
- [00:48:19.360]through just basic knowledge. Like Walt said, you know,
- [00:48:23.540]the textbooks kind of just give us the thing
- [00:48:25.180]of, you know, slavery, emancipation,
- [00:48:28.380]freedom, reconstruction, maybe a little Jim Crow here and
- [00:48:32.160]then Martin Luther King and now we good. And
- [00:48:35.160]kind of going through this process, it's kind of taught
- [00:48:38.080]all of us, I would say, that there are a lot
- [00:48:40.180]of stories in the middle and not the stories that are
- [00:48:44.100]publicized and that are popular. But even though
- [00:48:47.040]we're hearing the stories of the winners, we're
- [00:48:48.660]also hearing the stories of people who have had
- [00:48:51.260]lawsuits and haven't won. And we've gotten to see
- [00:48:55.520]those perspectives and things of that nature. And even
- [00:48:58.320]one thing that I say all the time is
- [00:49:00.000]sometimes I'll be in the middle of a case and I'll
- [00:49:02.040]just have to get up and take a lap because it's
- [00:49:04.880]that deep. And it's a little personal for me
- [00:49:07.760]because, you know, not only am I a Black person
- [00:49:12.380]in America and stuff of that and I witnessed things like Breonna
- [00:49:16.080]Taylor and George Floyd and
- [00:49:17.660]things of that nature in the height of 2020.
- [00:49:19.540]So it's kind of like these things are very much,
- [00:49:22.240]they're adding more perspective onto the modern things that are going on
- [00:49:25.680]in our faces that social media kind of makes us
- [00:49:28.920]be desensitized to. And it kind of gives us a
- [00:49:31.540]reattachment to the things that we've become
- [00:49:33.400]detached from. Thank you. It's really as much
- [00:49:46.020]a treat for us, I'll just say, to hear from you
- [00:49:49.600]as it is I hope for the audience. I know Dr. Thomas
- [00:49:54.560]and I are all just really excited to be able to work with you
- [00:49:56.760]throughout the summer. So thank
- [00:49:57.960]you so much for your hard work and for all of the empathy and talent
- [00:50:04.020]and expertise that you guys
- [00:50:05.360]are bringing to the project. I think as Veronica said, telling the
- [00:50:10.040]stories in the middle is
- [00:50:11.400]something that we really prioritize. Another question,
- [00:50:14.840]go ahead. Yeah, I wanted to say like
- [00:50:17.600]phenomenal speakers by the way, you guys are all
- [00:50:19.180]phenomenal. Wow, wow, wow, wow. I wanted to ask now
- [00:50:25.760]kind of to expand on your question with this
- [00:50:28.320]new knowledge, how do you see us remedying this
- [00:50:31.220]blatant problem in the U.S. legal system? And
- [00:50:34.200]do you believe that this kind of literature and
- [00:50:35.920]knowledge has space in education, for example, like
- [00:50:38.680]K through 12? Because a lot of people aren't
- [00:50:40.960]privy to this knowledge, you know what I mean?
- [00:50:48.280]Hi, we've actually talked about this all in the
- [00:50:55.860]group. And one of the things we talked about was actually JFK's
- [00:50:59.320]assassination. And I know someone
- [00:51:01.840]here said that they watched it. Veronica said that
- [00:51:05.020]she watched it. And, you know, I think if
- [00:51:08.160]we're allowing certain things into classrooms, that
- [00:51:11.780]kids, we would say we couldn't watch it,
- [00:51:14.460]then why wouldn't we let the literature that, you
- [00:51:17.800]know, some people will, it is violent. But I think
- [00:51:20.960]it's something that we need to bring to education.
- [00:51:24.500]One of the things I studied primarily at my home
- [00:51:26.800]institution is Mexican American segregation. It's something
- [00:51:30.160]that I'm probably going to write my
- [00:51:31.240]senior thesis on. And I think it's really interesting. But even in
- [00:51:34.760]Texas, we don't talk
- [00:51:35.920]about it. And by keeping these narratives out
- [00:51:38.940]of education, we kind of have this illusion
- [00:51:45.000]that these experiences were super far away. They
- [00:51:48.260]weren't. I know Cisneros v. CC ISD, which was actually filed
- [00:51:53.260]from my home city, was in the 70s. That's not
- [00:51:57.840]very far away from now. Brown v. Board of Education,
- [00:52:01.760]also, not very far from now. And in one of the books we even talk
- [00:52:06.000]about, I think it's Annette Gordon Reed says that
- [00:52:08.680]she knew people that celebrated in Galveston.
- [00:52:13.300]So by saying that we can't have these experiences in education, I
- [00:52:18.440]think we're doing a disservice.
- [00:52:20.540]Education needs to be complete. It cannot be distilled. I'm
- [00:52:25.740]from Texas. Juneteenth wasn't
- [00:52:28.300]really mentioned. I live like 300 miles away
- [00:52:32.360]from Galveston. I've been to Houston. I've seen
- [00:52:41.820]the best way to do that is K-12. Textbooks,
- [00:52:46.800]films like the film that Dr. Thomas has made.
- [00:52:50.460]O Say Can You See? All these sources are easily available now. And the
- [00:52:55.080]stuff that we're doing with
- [00:52:56.060]the Digital Legal Research Lab with Dr. Jones, Dr.
- [00:52:58.960]Jagodinsky, and Dr. Thomas is going to let us
- [00:53:01.460]bridge that gap. And yes, they are difficult reads, but history
- [00:53:05.860]is difficult. Thank you.
- [00:53:15.050]I'll just reiterate for those of you who are interested. The
- [00:53:20.890]earlywashingtondc.org site
- [00:53:23.570]has hundreds of freedom suits available that you
- [00:53:27.130]can look for. They're linked together by family.
- [00:53:29.910]They're linked together by type of freedom claim made. We also
- [00:53:34.770]have petitioningforfreedom.unl.edu,
- [00:53:37.870]which features over 1,000 habeas petitions that
- [00:53:42.130]are telling similar stories of freedom claims
- [00:53:45.530]within and also beyond slavery. And collectively,
- [00:53:50.110]we're working on an open education resource that
- [00:53:54.030]is a public website that will not only introduce audiences to these
- [00:54:00.050]kinds of legal materials,
- [00:54:01.890]but also present them in curated clusters as teaching modules. And our hope is that
- [00:54:08.210]people will really be able to take that and run with it
- [00:54:10.910]and incorporate it broadly.
- [00:54:14.470]Maybe Associate Dean Maxey-Harris, would you like
- [00:54:18.510]to reiterate the Ross film event this evening?
- [00:54:22.850]Since that's also kind of a public audience and
- [00:54:25.010]teaching tool. So yes, thank you. So we will have
- [00:54:28.550]a showing of history in at least three stories.
- [00:54:34.890]Anna will be one. Michael Shiner will be the other
- [00:54:39.110]one. And then The Bell Affair will be the feature
- [00:54:41.630]movie. And the Ross is free for you to come at
- [00:54:47.450]seven o'clock tonight. So yes, you'll be able
- [00:54:50.170]to see that now and now incorporate that into
- [00:54:53.810]your educational, wherever your environment and
- [00:54:56.390]network is. Thank you. Thanks for these
- [00:54:58.890]questions. We want to go ahead and give our graduate students time
- [00:55:01.370]to talk about their work
- [00:55:02.190]too. So thank you to our undergrads.
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- Tags:
- nsf
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