This review essay considers Alejandro de la Fuente and Ariela J. Gross’s Becoming Free, Becoming Black (2020); Laura F. Edwards’s The People and Their Peace (2009); Ariela J. Gross’s Double Character ([2000] 2006); Martha S. Jones’s Birthright Citizens (2018); Kelly M. Kennington’s In the Shadow of Dred Scott (2017); and Kimberly M. Welch’s Black Litigants in the Antebellum South (2018), arguing that one important implication of these works is that the roots of post-Reconstruction Black legal culture can be found during the antebellum period. The essay synthesizes the insights of these works regarding legal culture, legal consciousness, vernacular legal education, and legal networking. It concludes that, for students of Black legal culture and litigation for and by Black people beyond Reconstruction (that is, Jim Crow), examining the historiography of antebellum litigation for and by Black people is an important starting point in advanced discussions about Black legal culture.

这篇评论文章考虑了 Alejandro de la Fuente 和 Ariela J. Gross 的《变得自由，成为黑人》(2020)；劳拉·爱德华兹 (Laura F. Edwards) 的《人民及其和平》(The People and Their Peace) (2009)；阿瑞拉·J·格罗斯的双重性格（[2000]2006）；玛莎·S·琼斯的《与生俱来的公民》 (2018)；凯利·M·肯宁顿 (Kelly M. Kennington) 的《德雷德·斯科特的阴影》 (2017)；以及金伯利·M·韦尔奇（Kimberly M. Welch）的《南北战前南方的黑人诉讼人》（Black Litigants in the Antebellum South，2018），认为这些作品的一个重要含义是，重建后的黑人法律文化的根源可以在战前时期找到。本文综合了这些著作关于法律文化、法律意识、白话法律教育和法律网络的见解。结论是，对于研究黑人法律文化和重建后的黑人诉讼（即吉姆·克劳）的学生来说，研究内战前黑人诉讼的史学是关于黑人法律文化高级讨论的重要起点。