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David S. Reynolds - In the Shadow of Slavery

A review of "How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America" by Clint Smith in the New York Review of Books (Volume LXIX, No. 3).

By 1860, 57 percent of American's four million enslaved people were under the age of twenty.
Smith mentions of the Federal Writers' Project, created in 1935, which collected more than 2300 firsthand accounts of slavery, along with 500 photographs - material that was assembled in 1941 in the seventeen-volume "Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves".

Note: WPA Slave Narratives

Louisiana passed a law in 1880 mandating that the votes of only nine of twelve jurors were enough to convict a defendant in major felony cases. This law, integrated into the state's constitution in 1898, was explicitly intended "to establish the supremacy of the white race"; it was struck down by the Supreme Court only in 2020.

Perhaps as many as a third of inmates in the notorious Angola prison were convicted by non-unanimous juries.

See Also

2022-02-14 - Readings

Slavery

Bjorn's Notes