Jim Crow Justice, Hist 3142/AFRS 3142: Law-Secondary

You may need to try multiple strategies for finding state or federal statutes or court decisions.

1. This tab lists a number of secondary sources listing laws and/or court opinions.
2. Otherwise, start by finding law review articles on your topic. (See "Law review articles" box.) Use the notes in those materials to identify laws or cases on your topic.
   Start with the "Key Law Databases" box on the "Law Research Guide". I suggest starting with Index to Legal Periodicals. Only then turn to Westlaw or Nexis Uni, using vocabulary you have developed to search more precisely. As needed, the guide provides instructions for how to search most efficiently for law review articles.
3. Find other secondary sources including or referencing laws or court decisions on a relevant topic or time period. (See the "Law-Secondary" and "Secondary Sources" tabs.) Use the notes in those materials to identify laws or cases on your topic.
4. Search databases including the laws or court decisions themselves. See "Law-Primary" tab.

More in our Law Research Guide.

General

• Mangum, Charles S., Jr. The Legal Status of the Negro. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1940. (print and online).
  Includes sections on "Involuntary servitude," pp. 163-172; "Labor and related problems," pp. 173-180; "Charitable and penal institutions," pp. 223-235. Includes both laws and court opinions. Author seems to be sympathetic to the plight of legislators in the South.
• Waite, Edward F. "The Negro in the Supreme Court," Minnesota Law Review 30, no. 4 (March 1946): 219-302.
  Discusses some court decisions involving peonage.
• Hamilton, Howard Devon. The Legislative and Judicial History of the Thirteenth Amendment. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1950. Available in Dissertations and Theses.
  Section on "Peonage," pp. 169-252, includes discussion of both laws and court opinions.
• Caldwell, Arthur B. "The Civil Rights Section - Its Functions and its Statutes." In Senate. Committee on the Judiciary. Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights. Civil Rights - 1957. 85th Cong., 1st sess., February 14-16, 18-21, 26, March 1, 4-5, 1957, 222-237. ProQuest Congressional. "An address by Arthur B. Caldwell, Civil Rights Section, Department of Justice, before the civil rights class of the summer session of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa., on July 10, 1953 (revised January 1957)."
  See section on "Involuntary servitude, slavery, and peonage statutes", pp. 230-232.
• Cohen, William. "Negro Involuntary Servitude in the South, 1865-1940: A Preliminary Analysis." The Journal of Southern History 42, no. 1 (1976): 31–60.
  Includes discussion of both laws and court opinions.

U.S. Constitution

• Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation
  Main Ref KF4527 .U54 2002
  Updated online via govinfo.
• Amendments to the Constitution: A Brief Legislative History, 1985 (print and online)
  Govt Doc Y 4.J 89/2:S.prt.99-87
  Includes Amendments through the 26th.

State constitutions

• The Federal and State Constitutions, Colonial Charters, and Other Organic Laws of the States, Territories, and Colonies Now or Heretofore Forming the United States of America the United States of America. Washington: GPO, 1909. HathiTrust. Also available via Internet Archive. Also published as 59th Cong., 2nd sess., 1909. H.Doc. 357 pts. 1-7, serial 5190-5194.
  Includes state constitutions up through the early 1900s.
• Kettleborough, Charles. The State Constitutions and the Federal Constitution and Organic Laws of the Territories and Other Colonial Dependencies of the United States of America. Indianapolis: B.F. Bowen & Co., 1918. HathiTrust.
  Includes "the text of the federal constitution and the constitution of each of the forty-eight states, to which are added the organic laws of the territories and insular possessions. In all cases the constitutions are given as amended to date."

State laws

• Stephenson, Gilbert Thomas, Race distinctions in American Law, New York: D. Appleton, 1910. HathiTrust.
• HeinOnline > Subject Compilations of State Laws
• For surveys of state bills and/or laws 1925-1948, search on the following in the catalog in HathiTrust:
  "State law index" AND "Library of Congress"

Black Codes (Reconstruction era)

Multiple states

• Message from the President of the United States, Communicating, in Compliance with Resolutions of the Senate of the 5th of January and 27th of February Last: Information in Regard to Provisional Governors of States. 39th Cong., 1st sess., March 6,1866. S.Ex.Doc. 26, serial 1237. HathiTrust.
  Look for laws for each state listed in the table of contents on pp. 4-10.
• Freedmen. Message from the President of the United States, in Answer to a Resolution of the House of 27th Ultimo, Relative to the Provisions in the Constitutions of Several Southern States Relative to the Freedmen. 39th Cong., 1st sess., May 23, 1866. H.Ex.Doc. 118, serial 1263. HathiTrust.
  "A collation of the provisions in reference to freedmen contained in the amended constitutions of the southern States, and in the laws passed by those States since the overthrow of the rebellion."
• "Laws in Relation to Freedmen, Compiled by Command of Major General O.O. Howard, Commissioner Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands," in Letter of the Secretary of War, Communicating, in Compliance with a Resolution of the Senate of December 17, 1866, Reports of the Assistant Commissioners of Freedmen, and a Synopsis of Laws Respecting Persons of Color in the Late Slave States. 39th Cong., 2nd sess., January 3, 1867, pp. 170-230. S.Exec.Doc. 6, serial 1276. HathiTrust; HeinOnline.
• McPherson, Edward. Political History of the United States of America during the Period of Reconstruction. Originally published in 1871; republished with a new introduction, New York: Da Capo Press, 1972.
  Includes a chapter on state-level "Legislation respecting freedmen," pp. 29-44.
• Fleming, Walter L. Documentary History of Reconstruction: Political, Military, Social, Religious, Educational & Industrial, 1865 to the Present Time, Cleveland: Arthur H. Clark Co., 1906.
  (print and online) 2 volumes. Includes sections on: "Race and labor problems: 'Black codes'," vol. 1, pp. 245ff; "The Freedmen's Bureau and the Freedmen's Bank," vol. 1, pp. 317ff; and "Laws relating to Freedmen," vol. 1, pp. 273ff.
• Du Bois, W.E.B. Black Reconstruction in America: Toward a History of the Part Which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860-1880. Originally published 1935; republished London: Routledge, 2017.
  See especially pp. 115-162.
• Wilson, Theodore B. The Black Codes of the South. University: University of Alabama Press, 1965.
• The Black Codes were discussed in other House and Senate Documents that appear in the Serial Set. For more information, see "Federal Govt Docs" tab, "Serial Set" box.
• The Black Codes were discussed on the floor of the House and Senate and may be recorded in the Congressional Globe (1838-1873) and the Congressional Record (1873-present). Access both through HeinOnline > U.S. Congressional Documents.
• Jim Crow Laws, National Park Service.
• List of Jim Crow law examples by state, Wikipedia.
• Examples of Jim Crow Laws, Ferris State University.
• Jim Crow Laws, American Public Media.

Alabama

• Richter, Jeremy W. "Alabama's Anti-Miscegenation Statutes." The Alabama Review 68, no. 4 (October 1, 2015): 345–66.

North Carolina

• On The Books: Jim Crow and Algorithms of Resistance. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. See especially Session Laws Passed by the North Carolina General Assembly during 1866/67-1967, Identified by Machine Learning as Laws Likely to be Jim Crow Laws.
• Paschal, Richard A. Jim Crow in North Carolina : The Legislative Program from 1865 to 1920. Durham, North Carolina: Carolina Academic Press, 2021.
  "This book sets out in two tables all of the race-conscious laws enacted in North Carolina between 1865 and 1920."

South Carolina

• "The Black Code of 1866, Reprinted in Full," in South Carolina in 1876. Testimony as to the Denial of the Elective Franchise in South Carolina at the Elections of 1875 and 1876, Taken under the Resolution of the Senate of December 5, 1876. 44th Cong., 2nd sess., 1877, pp. 395-435. S.Misc.Doc. 48, vol.3, serial 1729. HathiTrust.

Virginia

• Black Laws of Virginia: A Summary of the Legislative Acts of Virginia Concerning Negroes from Earliest Times to the Present. Originally published in 1936; republished New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969.
  "This book deals exclusively with the status of the Virginia Negro, bond and free, as tracted through the laws, resolutions and ordinances of the Virginia Assembly beginning with the earliest records and coming down to the present, with the addition of a few pertinent sections from Virginia constitutions."

Peonage, convict labor, labor, and prisons (a selection)

• Second Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, 1886: Convict Labor. Washington: GPO, 1887. HathiTrust. Published in part in Report of the Secretary of the Interior, 49th Cong., 2nd sess., 1887. H.exec.doc. 1, part 5, serial 2470.
  Includes "Convict labor laws in the United States," pp. 507-604.
• "Convict Labor," Bulletin of the Department of Labor 5 (July 1896): 443-478. HathiTrust. Also published as 54th Cong., 1st sess., 1896. H.Doc. 33, part 5, serial 3405.
  Includes "Abstract of laws relating to convict labor passed since 1885" in the US and US states, pp. 471-478.
• Report of the Industrial Commission on Labor Legislation, Including Recommendations as to General Legislation, and Digests of the Laws of the States and Territories Relating to Labor Generally, to Convict Labor, and to Mine Labor. Vol. V of the Commission's reports. Washington: GPO, 1900. HathiTrust. Also published as 56th Cong., 1st sess., 1900. H.Doc. 476, part 5, serial 3992.
  See "Digest of existing statutes of the states and territories relating to convict labor," pp. 167-213.
• Report of the Industrial Commission on Prison Labor, Vol. III of the Commission's Reports. Washington: GPO, 1900. HathiTrust. Also published as 56th Cong., 1st sess., 1900. H.Doc. 476, part 3, serial 3991. See "Summary of convict-labor laws," pp. 141-166.
• Twentieth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Labor, 1905. Convict Labor. Washington: GPO, 1906. HathiTrust. Also published as 59th Cong., 1st sess., 1906. H.Doc. 906, serial 5046.
  Includes "Convict labor laws" in US and in US states, pp. 613-787.
• Compilation of Laws Relating to United States Prisoners, Prisons, Penitentiaries, Jails, etc., U.S. Attorney General, 1906.
• Russell, Charles W. Report on Peonage, Washington: GPO, 1908. HathiTrust. See also Report of Hon. Charles W. Russell, Assistant Attorney-General, Relative to Peonage Matters, 10 October 1907, in Annual Report of the Attorney-General of the United States for the Year 1907, pp. 207-215; also published as 60th Cong., 1st sess., 1907. H.Doc. 10, serial 5356.
  Provides a number of examples of peonage and cites both laws and court opinions.
• Hardy, Rives B. A Digest of the Laws and Practice of All the States of the Union in Reference to the Employment of Convicts. Richmond, 1911.
• Federal and State Laws Relating to Convict Labor. A letter from the Secretary of Labor. 63rd Cong., 2nd sess., 1914. S.Doc. 494, serial 6584. HathiTrust.
• "Labor Laws That Have Been Declared Unconstitutional." Bulletin of the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics 321, 1922. HathiTrust. Also published as 67th Cong., 3rd sess., 1922. H.Doc. 418, serial 8139.
  See sections on "Convict-made goods," pp. 32-33, and "Compulsory labor," pp. 35-36.
• "Laws Relating to Prison Labor in the United States as of July 1, 1933." Bulletin of the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics 596, 1933. HathiTrust. Also published as 73rd Cong., 2nd sess., 1933. H.Doc. 159, serial 9858.
• "Comparative Digest of Labor Legislation for the States of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, to be Used at the Georgia Conference on Labor Legislation, December 13, 1933, Atlanta, Ga." Bulletin of the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics 603, 1933. HathiTrust. Also published as 73rd Cong., 2nd sess., 1933. H.Doc. 178, serial 9858.
• "Laws Relating to Prison Labor in the United States Enacted in 1933 and 1934," Supplement to Bureau of Labor Statistics Bulletin 596, Serial No. R. 183, 1934. HathiTrust.
• U.S. Prison Industries Reorganization Administration. Chart and Comment on Laws Affecting the Labor of Prisoners and the Sale and Distribution of Prison-Made Products in the United States. [1937].
• "Prison-Labor Legislation, as of June 1, 1940." Monthly Labor Review 50.6 (1940): 1422-1429. HathiTrust.
• Schwartz, Bernard. Civil Rights. Statutory History of the United States. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, [1970]. Main Libr KF4743.8 1970
  "Consists of Federal legislation, extracts from congressional debates, major Supreme Court decisions, etc., with commentary by the compiler." See "The Anti-Peonage Act," pp. 159-178.
• Carr, Robert Kenneth. Federal Protection of Civil Rights; Quest for a Sword. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ. Press, 1947.
  Discussion of 3 peonage court cases in the 1940s, pp. 116-120, 180-182.
• Brodie, Sydney. "Federally-Secured Right to be Free from Bondage." The Georgetown Law Journal 40, no. 3 (March 1952): 367-398.
• Jennifer Roback. "Southern Labor Law in the Jim Crow Era: Exploitative or Competitive." University of Chicago Law Review 51, no. 4 (Fall 1984): 1161-1192.
  See footnotes to pp. 1163-1170.
• Involuntary Servitude, Forced Labor, and Sex Trafficking Statutes Enforced, U.S. Dept. of Justice