Book Selections

Before the Civil War, colonization schemes and black laws threatened to deport former slaves born in the United States. Birthright Citizens recovers the story of how African American activists remade national belonging through battles in legislatures, conventions, and courthouses. They faced formidable opposition, most notoriously from the US Supreme Court decision in Dred Scott. Still, Martha S. Jones explains, no single case defined their status. Former slaves studied law, secured allies, and conducted themselves like citizens, establishing their status through local, everyday claims. All along they argued that birth guaranteed their rights. With fresh archival sources and an ambitious reframing of constitutional law-making before the Civil War, Jones shows how the Fourteenth Amendment constitutionalized the birthright principle, and black Americans' aspirations were realized. Birthright Citizens tells how African American activists radically transformed the terms of citizenship for all Americans.

On December 4, 1969, attorney Jeff Haas was in a police lockup in Chicago, interviewing Fred Hampton's fiance. She described how the police pulled her from the room as Fred lay unconscious on their bed. She heard one officer say, "He's still alive." She then heard two shots. A second officer said, "He's good and dead now." She looked at Jeff and asked, "What can you do?" Fifty years later, Haas finds that there is still an urgent need for the revolutionary systemic changes Hampton was organizing to accomplish. With a new prologue discussing what has changed-and what has not-The Assassination of Fred Hampton remains Haas's personal account of how he and People's Law Office partner Flint Taylor pursued Hampton's assassins, ultimately prevailing over unlimited government resources and FBI conspiracy. Not only a story of justice delivered, the book puts Hampton in the spotlight as a dynamic community leader and an inspiration for those in the ongoing fight against injustice and police brutality.

Lawyer, Activist, Judge: Fighting for Civil and Voting Rights in Mississippi and Illinois is the story of Martha A. Mills, who worked to bring justice to a place where injustice thrived. In this compelling and fascinating account, Mills describes her journey to Mississippi as a young civil rights lawyer in the late 1960s after joining the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. She boldly challenged the racial status quo and racial barriers in the south, risking her personal safety in the process. Yet she looked racist judges, lawyers, lawmen, and Ku Kluxers in the eye--never backing down, in court or out. Mills's work as a civil rights activist continued through to her work as a judge in Cook County, Illinois.