In Part II of my interview with Professor Dylan C. Penningroth, author of Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights, we will discuss the three categories of rights as they were understood in the 1860's; how and why access to the law of everyday life was so important in the lives of former slaves; the little-understood phenomenon of the rise in Black property ownership in the South after the Civil War; the surprising relationship of African Americans and local courts in the South: how activists of the modern civil rights movement bequeathed to historians three flawed assumptions and much more.

In this, the first of two episodes, we will talk to Professor Dylan C. Penningroth, author of Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights. In this groundbreaking work, Professor Pennigroth explains how former slaves gained the right to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, and hold and convey real property. Using what he terms "the law of everyday life", African Americans created a legal culture that was little known before the publication of this important work.

In this concluding episode on the Civil War and the Constitution we will dicuss the 15th Amendment and the end of Reconstruction. We will examine the many factors that made the crafting of the 15th so difficult, the ratification process, and the efforts to undermine its effectivneess. We will also look at the reasons and circumstances that led to the end of Reconstrution in 1877, and how it has been interpreted by American historians since the end of the Civil War.

In this episode we will talk about the Civil Rights Act of 1866, but primarily we will dicuss the most impactful of the Constitution's Amendments, the Fourteenth. Specifically, the circumstances in the post-war south that compelled its creation, the role it played in Reconstruction, the men who drafted it, the many purposes it was meant to serve, the enacting statutes, and its early interpretation.

In this episode we will examine in some detail, important and transformative federal legislation passed during the second session of the 37th Congress (1861-62), including the Homestead Act, Morrill Act, Legal Tender Act and the Pacific Railroad Act. I will offer an introduction to the Civil War Amendments, the 13th, 14th, and 15th. We will end with thorough examination of the history and wording of the 13th Amendment and its unanticipated legacy.

In this second episode on the monumental impact of the Civil War on law and society, first we will talk some straight up history on why the war proved to be such a prolonged and terrible struggle. Next we will take on the weighty topic of Abraham Lincoln and the Constitution, specifically relating to the right of state secession, the suspension of the Writ of Habeas Corpus, and the Emancipation Proclamation.

In this the first of several episodes on the Civil War era and the Constitution, we will exam the root causes of the Civil War, the institution of slavery, and the factors that contributed to its longevity in America for 250 years. Also the provisions in the Constitution that addressed slavery, and the important state and federal laws that sustained it. We will also look at important pre-war legislation that served to preserve the Union, and lastly a close examination of the Supreme Court and the Dred Scott decision.

In this final episode we will we look how attitudes and procedures concerning capital crimes evolved, both in England and America. We will also examine the history of confinement in the United States, with a special emphasis on the prison reform movement of the nineteenth century. Lastly, we will discuss criminal law and procedure roughly from the end of WWII to the present day.

This is the second of three episodes on the history of criminal law and procedure in the United States. In this episode we will examine: the history of law enforcement, and specifically unformed police; the vigilante movement, and forms of criminal punishment in early colonial America.

This is the first of two episodes on the history of criminal law and procedure in the United States. In this first installment we will examine some basic definitions of crime, common law crimes, the evolution of the federal government's role in terms of landmark legislation and enforcement, the pivotal rule that the states play in criminal law, and the codification of criminal law.