Book Review: "Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights" by Dylan C. Penningroth

 

In Before the Movement, acclaimed historian Dylan C. Penningroth revises the conventional story. Drawing on long-forgotten sources found in the basements of county courthouses across the nation, Penningroth shows that African Americans, far from being ignorant about law until the middle of the twentieth century, have thought about, talked about, and used it going as far back as even the era of slavery. They dealt constantly with the laws of property, contract, inheritance, marriage and divorce, of associations (like churches and businesses and activist groups), and more. By exercising these “rights of everyday use,” they made Black rights usual. And in innumerable subtle ways, they helped shape the law itself.

Free Black people participated extensively in credit, debt and contracts in the decades before the Civil War. According to Penningroth, by 1860, there were over 16,000 free Black property owners in the South who held property worth nearly $8.8 billion in today’s dollars. Freedom meant that they could ask local judges to protect their rights, and they went to court in cases involving farms, cows and myriad other types of property. Black homeownership rose from 43,000 families in 1870 to over 500,000 families in 1910 (about 1 in 4 Black families nationwide). Black farmers owned more than 15 million acres and $208 billion in farm property (in today’s dollars). Lynchings also rose sharply in these years, and not coincidentally. 

"Penningroth's conclusions emerge from an epic research agenda.... Before the Movement presents an original and provocative account of how civil law was experienced by Black citizens and how their 'legal lives' changed over time . . . [an] ambitious, stimulating, and provocative book." - Eric Foner, New York Review of Books.

The author is a professor of law and history at the University of California, Berkeley. The book, which stretches from the last decades of slavery to the 1970s, partly traces the history of the author's own family. Before the Movement is an account of Black legal lives that looks beyond the Constitution and the criminal justice system to recover a rich, broader vision of Black life.

Read the September 26, 2023 Washington Post article.

Justice Department Finds that Idaho Violates Federal Civil Rights Law by Unnecessarily Segregating People with Physical Disabilities

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has announced its finding that Idaho unnecessarily segregates adults with physical disabilities in nursing facilities, in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the US Supreme Court’s decision in Olmstead v. L.C. DOJ’s findings, detailed in a letter to Idaho Governor Brad Little, follow a thorough investigation into the state’s service system for people with physical disabilities.

The ADA and the Olmstead decision require state and local governments to ensure the services they provide to people with disabilities are available in the most integrated setting appropriate to individuals’ needs. Community-based services can include assistance with daily activities, like showering or transferring from bed to wheelchair. Without community-based services, Idahoans with physical disabilities have little choice but to enter nursing facilities. Many will remain in those nursing facilities for years or decades, when they would prefer to live in the community. And each year of nursing facility care costs Idaho, on average per person, much more than what Idaho spends serving adults with physical disabilities at home.

According to the DOJ’s findings, 65% of Idahoans in nursing facilities have expressed a desire to live in the community, but 82% did not have an active discharge plan as of October 2024. In Idaho, about 19% of nursing home residents are younger than 65, and about 14% have low care needs.

DOJ’s investigation found that most Idaho Medicaid-funded nursing facility residents could live successfully at home with services Idaho offers. But Idaho limits access to services to transition out of nursing facilities and to live in the community. As a result, very few Idahoans with physical disabilities can access Idaho’s services to leave nursing facilities and remain at home. 

In-home nursing services can help people with disabilities with medication management, bathing, housekeeping, and more intensive care like managing medical devices. The DOJ letter says Idaho could remedy the ADA violations by expanding community-based services and allocating more resources to existing programs. By doing so, the state could not only improve outcomes for individuals with disabilities, but also save money on Medicaid expenditures, the report says.

The Civil Rights Division’s Disability Rights Section investigated this case with assistance from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Idaho.

For more information on the ADA, please call the department’s toll-free ADA Information Line at 1-800-514-0301 (TDD 800-514-0383) or visit www.ada.gov/topics/community-integration/.

Read the January 16, 2025 DOJ press release.

Read the January 19, 2025 Idaho Capital Sun article.

Justice Department Agreement with DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Orlando at SeaWorld Resolves Allegations of Discriminatory Policy Against Hosting Arabs

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has reached an agreement with AWH Orlando Property LLC, the owner of the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Orlando at SeaWorld in Florida (DoubleTree), to resolve allegations that the DoubleTree discriminated against people of Arab descent in violation of Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title II). Title II prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, or national origin in places of public accommodation, including hotels.

The owner, AWH Orlando Property, denied the allegations and did not admit liability. Attorneys for the owner said that both parties reached the agreement to avoid a prolonged legal process.

The lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida alleges that the DoubleTree adopted and implemented a discriminatory policy against hosting guests of Arab descent by unilaterally canceling a conference that was to be held by the Arab America Foundation, a non-profit educational and cultural organization, in November 2023, a week before the conference was scheduled to begin and almost a month after the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

The lawsuit alleges that the DoubleTree’s decision to cancel the Arab America Foundation’s conference was not because of any legitimate, non-discriminatory reasons. Although the hotel claimed that the cancelation was because of security concerns, the hotel faced no security threats or risks associated with the conference. As alleged in DOJ’s complaint, contrary to what the DoubleTree told to the Arab America Foundation, it had not received any calls or other communications raising a safety or security threat to the conference or to the hotel. Rather, the decision to cancel was based on the national origin of the Arab America Foundation’s members and the conference attendees. The complaint therefore alleges that the DoubleTree discriminated on the basis of national origin and denied people of Arab descent the full and equal enjoyment of access to the services, accommodations, and privileges at the hotel.

The settlement, a consent decree that must still be approved by the court, requires the DoubleTree to:

• Issue a statement to the Arab America Foundation that all guests and groups are welcome to the hotel, including Arab and Arab American guests and groups;
• Retain a qualified compliance officer to oversee compliance with the consent decree for two years;
• Notify employees and executives of the DoubleTree’s obligations under Title II and the consent decree, including its commitment to ensuring equal access to the hotel, regardless of race, color, religion, or national origin;
• Establish a written anti-discrimination policy, which includes a system of accepting, investigating, and responding to guest complaints of discrimination;
• Conduct outreach to Arab or Arab American groups to share promotional materials about the hotel and indicate that it is open to all members of the public;
• Provide training to employees and executives on Title II and the company's obligations under the consent decree; and
• Make regular reports to DOJ to demonstrate its compliance with the consent decree.

Under Title II, DOJ’s Civil Rights Division can obtain injunctive relief that changes policies and practices to remedy the discriminatory conduct. Title II does not authorize the division to obtain monetary damages for customers who are victims of discrimination.

Read the January 16, 2025 DOJ release.

Read the January 17, 2025 CBS News article.

Justice Department (DOJ) Issues Report Highlighting Critical Enforcement Work Over the Past Four Years; But Trump Administration DOJ Then Cancels New Civil Rights Work

The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has issued its 2021-2024 Civil Rights Division Highlights Report, outlining various accomplishments of the division and its partners in enforcing the nation’s civil rights laws and the Constitution from 2021-2024.

The report reflects upon a portion of the critical civil rights work across the division’s 11 sections where the career staff and leadership worked to bring to justice those who harmed, threatened and/or intimidated people because of their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, English proficiency, or disability status.   

This work has included challenging discriminatory voting laws and abortion restrictions, to investigating police departments and prison conditions, to fighting modern day redlining, and working to combat hate and protect people with disabilities and LGBTQ people.

“Our Civil Rights Division has doggedly pursued justice for our nation’s most vulnerable through enforcement of our civil rights laws by combating hate and exploitation, promoting fairness and accountability in our criminal justice system, strengthening democracy, and expanding and ensuring opportunity and access for all. This report provides snapshots of some of that work,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “Over the past four years, I have had the privilege and honor of leading the Civil Rights Division and overseeing this crucial work. I am incredibly grateful for the tireless efforts of our career employees who have steadfastly abided by Attorney General Merrick B. Garland’s charge to uphold the rule of law, protect civil rights and keep our country and communities safe. And I am indebted to our communities and advocates who bravely asserted their rights and shared their stories in our common pursuit of justice and fairness.”

More information about the Civil Rights Division can be found at www.justice.gov/crt. To report a possible civil rights violation, please visit www.civilrights.justice.gov/.  

Unfortunately, on January 22, 2025, the Trump Administration Justice Department "has ordered an immediate halt to all new civil rights cases or investigations - and signaled that it might back out of Biden-era agreements with police departments that engaged in discrimination or violence, according to two internal memos sent to staff on Wednesday. The actions, while expected, represent an abrupt about-face for a department that had for the past four years aggressively investigated high-profile instances of violence and systemic discrimination in local law enforcement and government agencies."

Read the January 16, 2025 DOJ press release.

Read the January 17, 2025 Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights article.

Read the January 22, 2025 New York Times article.

Book Review: "Not in My Backyard: How Citizen Activists Nationalized Local Politics in the Fight to Save Green Springs" by Brian Balogh

Yale University Press, 2024. $35.00 hardcover. 385 pages.

This interesting book details how a woman-led citizens’ group beat a Southern political machine by enlisting federal bureaucrats and judges to protect their neighborhood from unchecked economic development. It is also one story of the beginning of NIMBYism and local political activism in a decades-long fight to save Green Springs, Virginia. It illuminates the economic tradeoffs of protecting the environment, the changing nature of local control, and the surprising power of history to advance public policy.

Political neophyte Rae Ely began a campaign in 1970 to stop a prison and later a strip mine, in Green Springs. The local political machine supported the proposed projects, promising jobs for impoverished Louisa County, Virginia. But Ely and her allies prevailed by applying some of the tactics of the Civil Rights movement - the appeal to federal agencies and courts to circumvent local control—and by using new historical interpretations to create the first rural National Historic Landmark District. When these middle-class white women spoke out in defense of their community, they expanded the space for political participation in ways that would have lasting consequences.

The Green Springs protesters fought to preserve the historic character of their neighborhood and the surrounding environment characterized the conflict in late twentieth-century America between unbridled economic development for all and protecting the quality of life for an economically privileged few. 

NIMBY tactics are now used by neighborhood groups across the nation, even if they have been applied in ways she never intended: to resist any form of development. Green Springs, in fact, reflects an atypical approach to NIMBYism. Ely could only turn to the federal government because the projects she sought to stop received federal funds. In most cases, the political power that NIMBY groups wield is overwhelmingly dependent on the turn toward local control - which was a change in urban policy that developed in reaction to urban renewal (often federally funded).

A good source for detailing the start of NIMBYism is Katherine Levine Einstein, David M. Glick, and Maxwell Palmer’s Neighborhood Defenders: Participatory Politics and America's Housing Crisis (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2020).

Read the February 4, 2024 article in the Independent Review: A  Journal of Political Economy.

Book Review: JOHN LEWIS: A Life, by David Greenberg

 

Simon & Schuster, 2024. $35.00 hardcover. 704 pages.

David Greenberg’s “authoritative…definitive biography” (David J. Garrow, Pulitzer Prize–winning author) follows Lewis’ life through documents from numerous archives, interviews with 275 people who knew him, and rare footage of Lewis speaking from his hospital bed after Selma. The author relates his history beyond the civil rights era, highlighting his leadership in the Voter Education Project, where he helped enroll millions of African American voters across the South. The book also covers Lewis' ascent in politics, first locally in Atlanta and then as a respected member of Congress. As part of the Democratic leadership, Lewis was admired on both sides of the aisle for his unwavering dedication to nonviolent integration and justice. Recommended.

Support Needed for Fair Housing Bill HB1239 in the Current Maryland Session!

 

The Fair Housing and Housing Discrimination - Regulations, Intent, and Discriminatory Effect Bill is sponsored by Delegates Deni Taveras (D-47B), Mary A. Lehman (D-21), Joe Vogel (D-17), Nick Allen (D-8), Julian Ivey (D-47A), Joseline A. Peña-Melnyk (D-21), and Jamila J. Woods (D-26). Go to https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/mgawebsite/Legislation/Details/HB1239?ys=2025RS to read the Official Document.

The bill was originally assigned to the House Environment and Transportation Committee. Its effective date would be October 1, 2025. It currently is in the House of Delegates, and a House Environment and Transportation Committee hearing about the bill is scheduled for February 28th at 1:00 p.m.

HB1239 authorizes the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development to adopt certain regulations related to affirmatively furthering fair housing; providing that certain discriminatory housing practices may be committed without intent; prohibiting a person from acting in a certain manner that has a discriminatory effect against a person related to the sale or rental of a dwelling; and providing that certain conduct does not constitute a certain violation.

This bill enhances fair housing protections in the state of Maryland by expanding the Department of Housing and Community Development's responsibilities and clarifying housing discrimination regulations. The bill requires the Department to administer housing programs in a way that "affirmatively furthers fair housing" and to collaborate with nonprofit and governmental entities committed to fair housing goals. Most importantly, the legislation introduces a new legal standard that allows claims of housing discrimination to be proven even without demonstrating intentional discrimination, meaning that practices with a discriminatory effect can be challenged regardless of the actor's intent. This statement refers to the legal concept of "disparate impact" in housing discrimination.

Disparate impact theory is a key legal principle in fair housing enforcement, ensuring  that policies or practices that disproportionately harm protected groups - regardless of intent - can be challenged under the law. Unlike cases of overt discrimination, disparate impact cases address systemic inequities that come from seemingly neutral policies. This doctrine is crucial for addressing racial disparities in housing, zoning laws that disproportionately exclude certain populations, and lending practices that result in unequal mortgage approvals. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the use of disparate impact claims in Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project (2015), affirming that policies with discriminatory effects can violate the Fair Housing Act, even in the absence of intentional discrimination. California, New York, and Illinois have state-level disparate impact protections similar to what this bill proposes.

The bill specifically prohibits various discriminatory practices in housing, such as refusing to rent or sell, making discriminatory statements, or providing unequal services based on characteristics like race, color, religion, sex, disability, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, source of income, or military status. 

The bill also provides a defense for actions that meet three conditions: the action was without discriminatory intent, was justified by legitimate business necessity, and could not have been accomplished through less discriminatory means. 

The legislation empowers aggrieved persons to file civil actions and allows for remedies including damages and injunctive relief, with the Attorney General granted broad investigative and prosecutorial powers to address civil rights violations in housing.

Read the BillTrack50 summary.

Read the proposed bill.