"This volume presents essays evaluating the similarities and differences between the legal, political, ethical, and practical landscapes confronted by the death penalty abolition movement at the time of the Furman v. Georgia decision and subsequent reversal and those confronted by the same movement today"--

The processed records of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund consist of approximately 80,000 items of which about 80% (210,299 images) have been digitized thus far. Spanning the years 1915-1968, with most dating from 1940 to 1960, these records document the work and procedures of the organization as it combated racial discrimination in the nation’s courts, establishing in the process a public interest legal practice that was unprecedented in American jurisprudence. The organization’s records cover a host of topics, including segregation in schools, on buses, and in public facilities; discrimination in housing and property ownership; voting rights; police brutality; racial violence; and countless other infringements of civil rights.