Legal History at the Southern

A big tip of the hat to Michael Ross, University of Maryland History, for making sure we knew of “the great legal history panels at this Southern Historical Association’s upcoming meeting this weekend in Atlanta.”  The full program is here.  Professor Ross especially notes:
 
Friday Nov. 14, 9:30-11:30: SLAVERY, LAW, AND THE AMERICAN STATE IN THE CIVIL WAR ERA
PRESIDING: Manisha Sinha, University of Massachusetts at Amherst

Slave Manifests and Federal Regulation of Slave Status in Antebellum America
Gautham Rao, American University

Dred Scott and Washington’s Legal Community in the Mid-Nineteenth Century
Rachel Shelden, University of Oklahoma

The Disputed Constitutionality of the Emancipation Proclamation
Cynthia Nicoletti, University of Virginia

COMMENTS: Manisha Sinha; Gregory Downs, City University of New York

Friday, November 14 11:45-1:50: A CONVERSATION WITH JUANITA JONES (MRS. RALPH DAVID) ABERNATHY

“Remembering a Career in Civil Rights”
Juanita Jones Abernathy, Atlanta, Ga.

A leading force throughout the civil rights movement, Juanita Odessa Jones Abernathy will engage the members of the SHA in a conversation about her experiences advocating social change. The widow of the Rev. Ralph David Abernathy who, with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., helped lead the struggle through the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.  Mrs. Abernathy participated in every event from the Montgomery Bus Boycott through Albany, Birmingham, Selma, Chicago, the Poor People’s Campaign and the Charleston Strike of 1968, not stepping out of the civil rights spotlight until her husband left the SCLC in 1976.

Sponsored by the SHA Committee on Minorities, the Georgia Humanities Council and the Georgia State University, Department of African American Studies.  The presider is Glenn T. Eskew, Georgia State University; introductory comments by Brenda Tindal, University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Friday, November 14: 4:45 P.M.-6:30 P.M.: SOUTHERN ASSOCIATION FOR WOMEN HISTORIANS ANNUAL ADDRESS
PRESIDING: Emily Clark, Tulane University

“Partus Sequitur Ventrum”: Colonial Slave Law and the History of Women in Slavery
Jennifer L. Morgan, New York University

Saturday, November 15: 2:30-4:30 P.M.: POLICING RACE, MEDIATING CONFLICT, AND ENFORCING MORAL, LEGAL, AND SOCIAL NORMS IN THE ANTEBELLUM SOUTH
PRESIDING: Heather Andrea Williams, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

African Americans and the Enticements of Market Revolution in the Courts of Newly-
Americanized St. Louis, 1804-1836. Mark Carroll, University of Missouri

Interracial Violence and Corporal Punishment in the Carolinas: The Unique Dynamic of Community-Centered Local Legal Debates, 1800-1840
Meggan Farish, Duke University

Slavery in Virginia’s Antebellum Jails
Taja-Nia Henderson, Rutgers School of Law, Newark

COMMENTS: Robert Cottrol, George Washington University Law School

Sunday, November 16: 9:00-11:00 A.M.: SLAVERY, LIBERTY AND THE LAW
PRESIDING: Kevin Dawson, University of California, Merced

Law at the Water’s Edge: Vice-Admiralty Courts in Colonial South Carolina and the British Atlantic World
Lee Wilson Bowden, University of Virginia

Stolen Lives and Stolen Labor: An Investigation into the Forgotten Phenomenon of Slave Stealing in the American South
Laura Sandy, University of Manchester, United Kingdom

Restored to a British Liberty: The Freedom Plea of a Bermudian Enslaved in Louisiana
Neil Kennedy, Memorial University, St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada

COMMENTS: Kevin Dawson; Kenneth Aslakson, Union College