Black resistance, white law : a history of constitutional racism in America.

Berry's masterly examination of practices, happenings, state and federal laws, and Supreme Court decisions that are inherently or explicitly racist is an unutterably painful and much needed chronicle. It carries the reader from Colonial slavery and the role of African Americans during the Revolution, both cursorily sketched, through the next 200 years. Berry arguably offers an overly harsh assessment of Andrew Jackson's response to South Carolina's nullification ordinance; is entirely too succinct on the major slave revolts and constitutional views of slavery in the states and the territories; and, conversely, excessively detailed in descriptions of the 1894 Pullman strike or the recent Rodney King and Reginald Denny cases in Los Angeles. But there is no denying the cumulative power of her skilled rendering of the Seminole Wars of the 1830s; the US Army's support of slaveholders in any number of southern pre-Civil War and Reconstruction domestic disorders; or the dilatory enforcement of civil rights measures on the part of successive administrations after the Civil War, lasting well into the 20th century. Taking readers through the seemingly endless instances of lynchings, brutalities, and constitutionally and officially sanctioned violence and intimidation against African Americans over the entire trajectory of US history, Berry presents her case with clarity, learning, and austerity. All levels. M. Cantor; University of Massachusetts at Amherst

Arguing that federal law still perpetuates racial subordination through toleration of police abuse and racial violence, Berry here updates a study she originally published in 1971. Aimed mainly at students, the book presents an account of the policies and theories of repression spanning from the introduction of slavery in 1619 to the suppression of the abolitionist movement, violence under Reconstruction and 20th-century lynchings. Berry, who teaches law and history at the University of Pennsylvania, shows that concern about the country's world image led to a more vigorous federal role in the 1960s. Analyzing events of recent years, she observes that even under the more progressive Carter administration, the federal government was reluctant to prosecute police abuse under federal statutes, and she cites numerous instances of hate crimes and police brutality under subsequent Republican administrations--the 1985 arson of a black family's home in a white area of Wren, Miss., for example, and racial harassment on college campuses. She concludes that until government treats racial violence against blacks as seriously as it does attacks on whites, black rebellions will continue. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved