Awards

• Long-listed for ALA Carnegie Medal 2023
• Short-listed for Hurston/Wright Legacy Award 2023
• Short-listed for Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction 2022
• Short-listed for Los Angeles Times Book Prize 2022
• Short-listed for Massachusetts Book Award 2023
• Winner of Hillman Prize 2023
• Winner of Los Angeles Times Book Prize 2022
• Winner of Nautilus Book Award 2023

Overview

If the law cannot protect a person from a lynching, then isn’t lynching the law? In By Hands Now Known, Margaret A. Burnham, director of Northeastern University’s Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project, challenges our understanding of the Jim Crow era by exploring the relationship between formal law and background legal norms in a series of harrowing cases from 1920 to 1960. From rendition, the legal process by which states make claims to other states for the return of their citizens, to battles over state and federal jurisdiction and the outsize role of local sheriffs in enforcing racial hierarchy, Burnham maps the criminal legal system in the mid-twentieth-century South, and traces the unremitting line from slavery to the legal structures of this period and through to today. Drawing on an extensive database, collected over more than a decade and exceeding 1,000 cases of racial violence, she reveals the true legal system of Jim Crow, and captures the memories of those whose stories have not yet been heard.

Full Product Details

9780393867855

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Reviews

Defying national suppression and indifference, By Hands Now Known vividly conveys the stories of those whose lives were destroyed by previously undocumented racial violence between 1920 and 1960. This indispensable book analyzes the interdependence of formal law and informal terror in the United States as local sheriffs, government detectives, governors, and judges enforced white supremacy. Margaret Burnham, drawing on a painstakingly constructed database, launches a vital and restorative reckoning with the reprehensible devastation of lives, communities, justice, and memory.--Martha Minow, 300th Anniversary University Professor, Harvard University, and author of When Should Law Forgive? For nineteenth-century European latecomers, 'access to whiteness erased the history of exclusion, ' declares Margaret A. Burnham of our continually airbrushed, exceptionalist past. For today's historically excluded black, red, brown, and yellow, reparations compensate for whiteness. By Hands Now Known, Burnham's narratively lively yet stunningly exhaustive interrogation of Jim Crow laws retained from slavery, misconstrued after Reconstruction, and nationalized during Plessy v. Ferguson, ought to become indispensable to all legal and civil rights considerations, and the cause celebre of our time--reparations.--David Levering Lewis, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of W.E.B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century, 1919-1963

Searing.... An essential reckoning with America's history of racial violence. -- Publishers Weekly, starred review Uncovers the hidden and unknown victims of Jim Crow violence.... Readers interested in the long history of the civil rights struggle should definitely read this. -- Library Journal, starred review Defying national suppression and indifference, By Hands Now Known vividly conveys the stories of those whose lives were destroyed by previously undocumented racial violence between 1920 and 1960.... Margaret A. Burnham, drawing on a painstakingly constructed database, launches a vital and restorative reckoning with the reprehensible devastation of lives, communities, justice, and memory. -- Martha Minow, 300th Anniversary University Professor, Harvard University, and author of When Should Law Forgive? A vitally important history.... Burnham's meticulous unpacking-of newspaper accounts, coroners' reports, and interviews with surviving witnesses, family members, and clergy-is searing, unforgettable, and profoundly moving. -- Patricia J. Williams, author of The Alchemy of Race and Rights and Giving a Damn If you truly want to understand why police and vigilantes who kill Black people are rarely held to account, you must read this extraordinary book.... By far the most sobering and most illuminating work I have ever read on the long history of state-sanctioned racial violence in the US. -- Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Race Rebels Needs to be read by everyone who recognizes the historic mandate of our time: to interrupt cycles of racist violence.... Rigorously delineated, passionately argued, Margaret A. Burnham's book offers us heart-wrenching cases.... But Burnham goes further, asking us to finally acknowledge the history of ever-present resistance, even under the most insurmountable conditions, and to consider what justice might mean today. -- Angela Y. Davis, Distinguished Professor Emerita, University of California, Santa Cruz In this necessary and important book, Margaret A. Burnham addresses the enormous violence necessary to sustain Jim Crow through a series of compelling case studies about the lives destroyed by the brutal regime of separate but equal.... In reckoning with the impact of this history on the present, Burnham asks how we might undo or redress this legacy of violence. It is timely and essential reading. -- Saidiya Hartman, author of Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments Masterfully explores how everyday acts of violence fundamentally shaped Jim Crow during the twentieth century. With meticulous and compelling new research, Margaret A. Burnham offers a powerful, moving, and groundbreaking account of the interconnections between race, law, and citizenship in US history. -- Keisha N. Blain, coeditor of the number-one New York Times bestseller Four Hundred Souls and award-winning author of Until I Am Free [This] narratively lively yet stunningly exhaustive interrogation of Jim Crow laws retained from slavery, misconstrued after Reconstruction, and nationalized during Plessy v. Ferguson, ought to become indispensable to all legal and civil rights considerations, and the cause celebre of our time-reparations. -- David Levering Lewis, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of W. E. B. Du Bois

By Hands Now Known: Jim Crow's Legal Executioners needs to be read by everyone who recognizes the historic mandate of our time: to interrupt cycles of racist violence that are rooted in slavery and have repeatedly found new modes of expression, even as the unresolved old forms plague our historical memory. Rigorously delineated, passionately argued, Margaret Burnham's book offers us heart-wrenching cases revealing quotidian patterns of violence, unrecognized in law and destined to fade into obscurity, even as we memorialize KKK lynchings and other spectacular acts of vigilante violence. But Burnham goes further, asking us to finally acknowledge the history of ever-present resistance, even under the most insurmountable conditions, and to consider what justice might mean today.--Angela Y. Davis, Distinguished Professor Emerita, History of Consciousness and Feminist Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz Defying national suppression and indifference, By Hands Now Known vividly conveys the stories of those whose lives were destroyed by previously undocumented racial violence between 1920 and 1960. This indispensable book analyzes the interdependence of formal law and informal terror in the United States as local sheriffs, government detectives, governors, and judges enforced white supremacy. Margaret Burnham, drawing on a painstakingly constructed database, launches a vital and restorative reckoning with the reprehensible devastation of lives, communities, justice, and memory.--Martha Minow, 300th Anniversary University Professor, Harvard University, and author of When Should Law Forgive? For nineteenth-century European latecomers, 'access to whiteness erased the history of exclusion, ' declares Margaret A. Burnham of our continually airbrushed, exceptionalist past. For today's historically excluded black, red, brown, and yellow, reparations compensate for whiteness. By Hands Now Known, Burnham's narratively lively yet stunningly exhaustive interrogation of Jim Crow laws retained from slavery, misconstrued after Reconstruction, and nationalized during Plessy v. Ferguson, ought to become indispensable to all legal and civil rights considerations, and the cause celebre of our time--reparations.--David Levering Lewis, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of W.E.B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century, 1919-1963

If you truly want to understand why police and vigilantes who kill Black people are rarely held to account, you must read this extraordinary book. As Margaret Burnham demonstrates, African Americans not only died--and fought back--in much greater numbers than we had imagined, but such relentless slaughter was made possible by federal complicity. By far the most sobering and most illuminating work I have ever read on the long history of state-sanctioned racial violence in the U.S.--Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class In this necessary and important book, Burnham addresses the enormous violence necessary to sustain Jim Crow through a series of compelling case studies about the lives destroyed by the brutal regime of separate but equal. The national legal system that endorsed and perpetuated this racist violence is the focus of her analysis. Rendition laws, abduction and kidnapping, massacre and terror provided the pillars of white rule. In short, the legal apparatus sanctioned violence and murder. In reckoning with the impact of this history on the present, Burnham asks how we might undo or redress this legacy of violence. It is timely and essential reading.--Saidiya Hartman, author of Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Riotous Black Girls, Troublesome Women, and Queer Radicals Makes visible the extraordinary ordinariness of murder committed against black citizens during the Jim Crow era. . . . [A] vitally important history. . . . This powerful book recounts some of the stories of those lost voices and lives, and issues eloquent demand for the respect, as well as the process, that is so due--and overdue--in their remembrance today. Burnham's meticulous unpacking--of newspaper accounts, coroners' reports, and interviews with surviving witnesses, family members, and clergy--is searing, unforgettable, and profoundly moving.--Patricia J. Williams, author of The Alchemy of Race and Rights: Diary of a Law Professor and Giving a Damn: Race, Romance and Gone With the Wind Margaret A. Burnham's By Hands Now Known masterfully explores how everyday acts of violence fundamentally shaped Jim Crow during the twentieth century. With meticulous and compelling new research, Burnham offers a powerful, moving, and groundbreaking account of the interconnections between race, law, and citizenship in US history.--Keisha N. Blain, coeditor of the No. 1 New York Times bestseller Four Hundred Souls and author of Until I Am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer's Enduring By Hands Now Known: Jim Crow's Legal Executioners needs to be read by everyone who recognizes the historic mandate of our time: to interrupt cycles of racist violence that are rooted in slavery and have repeatedly found new modes of expression, even as the unresolved old forms plague our historical memory. Rigorously delineated, passionately argued, Margaret Burnham's book offers us heart-wrenching cases revealing quotidian patterns of violence, unrecognized in law and destined to fade into obscurity, even as we memorialize KKK lynchings and other spectacular acts of vigilante violence. But Burnham goes further, asking us to finally acknowledge the history of ever-present resistance, even under the most insurmountable conditions, and to consider what justice might mean today.--Angela Y. Davis, Distinguished Professor Emerita, History of Consciousness and Feminist Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz Defying national suppression and indifference, By Hands Now Known vividly conveys the stories of those whose lives were destroyed by previously undocumented racial violence between 1920 and 1960. This indispensable book analyzes the interdependence of formal law and informal terror in the United States as local sheriffs, government detectives, governors, and judges enforced white supremacy. Margaret Burnham, drawing on a painstakingly constructed database, launches a vital and restorative reckoning with the reprehensible devastation of lives, communities, justice, and memory.--Martha Minow, 300th Anniversary University Professor, Harvard University, and author of When Should Law Forgive? For nineteenth-century European latecomers, 'access to whiteness erased the history of exclusion, ' declares Margaret A. Burnham of our continually airbrushed, exceptionalist past. For today's historically excluded black, red, brown, and yellow, reparations compensate for whiteness. By Hands Now Known, Burnham's narratively lively yet stunningly exhaustive interrogation of Jim Crow laws retained from slavery, misconstrued after Reconstruction, and nationalized during Plessy v. Ferguson, ought to become indispensable to all legal and civil rights considerations, and the cause celebre of our time--reparations.--David Levering Lewis, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of W.E.B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century, 1919-1963

Author Information

Margaret A. Burnham is the founding director of the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project at Northeastern University, and has been a staffer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, a civil rights lawyer, a defense attorney, and a judge. A professor of law, she was nominated by President Biden and confirmed by the US Senate to serve on the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Review Board. She lives in Boston, Massachusetts.

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