Section 1983 is one of the most important civil rights laws on the books; tens of thousands of plaintiffs file Section 1983 cases each year seeking to hold state and local officials to account for unconstitutional conduct ranging from excessive force and false arrest, to violations of free speech rights and much else. But where does the law come from? In this episode, we explore the origins of Section 1983, or, as it was originally called, Section One of the Ku Klux Klan Act 1871.
Click here for transcript.
Click for Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, and Stitcher.
Guests
Jim Casey, Colored Conventions Project/Penn State
David Achtenberg, University of Missouri – Kansas City School of Law
Stephen West, Catholic University of America
Peggy Cooper Davis, NYU Law
Resources
P. Gabrielle Foreman, Jim Casey, Sarah Lynn Patterson, The Colored Conventions Movement: Black Organizing in the Nineteenth Century
David Achtenberg, A ‘Milder Measure of Villainy’: The Unknown History of 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 and the Meaning of ‘Under Color of’ Law
Stephen West, Remembering Reconstruction in Its Twilight: Ulysses S. Grant and James G. Blaine on the Origins of Black Suffrage
Peggy Cooper Davis, Aderson Francois, & Colin Starger, The Persistance of the Confederate Narrative
James Pope, Snubbed Landmark: Why Cruikshank v. U.S. (1876) Belongs at the Heart of the American Constitutional Canon
Robert Kaczorowski, Federal Enforcement of Civil Rights During the First Reconstruction
Robert Goldstein, Blyew: Variations on a Jurisdictional Theme
Meeting of Colored Citizens of Frankfort, KY and Vicinity, 1871
Proceedings of the Colored State Convention Held in Nashville, 1871
Recent Episodes
Everything You Eat, Drink, and Wear | Season 3, Ep. 11
Government officials must obtain a warrant before forcibly entering a home (absent consent or an emergency). That rule goes back to the Founding. But in […]
Listen NowSpecial Weapons and Tactics | Season 3, Ep. 10
In 2020, a police SWAT team blew up Vicki Baker’s house after a fugitive barricaded himself inside. On this episode, we ask: who pays the […]
Listen NowPunishment Without Crime | Season 3, Ep. 9
Civil forfeiture is a civil rights nightmare, allowing police and prosecutors to seize billions of dollars’ worth of property annually—cash, cars, houses, bank accounts, and […]
Listen NowPublic Purpose | Season 3, Ep. 8
In 2005, in the case of Kelo v. New London, the Supreme Court allowed officials to seize and raze an entire neighborhood of well-maintained homes […]
Listen Now