From Slave Abuse to Hate Crime

Ely Aaronson is an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Haifa, Israel.

• 1. Towards a historical and sociological analysis of the criminalization of racial violence; 2. Progressive criminalization at the heart of darkness?: the legal response to the victimization of slaves in the colonial and antebellum South; 3. 'Social equality is not a subject to be legislated upon': the rise and fall of federal pro-black criminalization policy, 1865–1909; 4. 'We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with': campaigning for criminalization reform in the long civil rights movement, 1909–68; 5. Criminalizing racial hatred, legitimizing racial inequality: hate-crime laws and the new politics of pro-black criminalization; 6. Conclusion: criminalization reform and egalitarian social change - an uneasy relationship.

'With a broad chronological sweep from the colonial era to the present day, Ely Aaronson for the first time illuminates the connections between efforts to criminalize violence against African Americans under slavery and Jim Crow and hate crime legislation today. Putting the tools of sociological analysis to work, he recasts familiar stories in a new and fascinating light, showing the way criminal justice - or injustice - works to perpetuate racial hierarchies. A must-read for students of law, history, criminology, and critical race studies.' Ariela J. Gross, John B. and Alice R. Sharp Professor of Law and History, University of Southern California Law School