Say His Name: Police Brutality, Extra-Judicial Killings and Achieving Racial Justice in the American Legal System
With the Black Lives Matter Movement in full swing, I wanted to write an essay about police brutality and the gravity of what we are fighting for. We are not fighting against one incident, we are fighting against centuries of injustice. While there has been an acceptance of responsibly for the slave trade and Jim Crow laws by governments, a minimum acceptance is all there is. I do not focus heavily on the positives of the Civil Rights Movement, most school textbooks have a very poor teaching of racism after the movement. I try to discuss ways in which the governments could take action and how we ourselves can change things (protesting, educating and harnessing white privilege). They did it in the Civil Rights Movement, we can do it now. Note: I am not a scholar, I am just an angry law student; forgive any errors. I also know this is shoddy referencing work but everything has been cited - just not beautifully.
With the Black Lives Matter Movement in full swing, I wanted to write an essay about police brutality and the gravity of what we are fighting for. We are not fighting against one incident, we are fighting against centuries of injustice. While there has been an acceptance of responsibly for the slave trade and Jim Crow laws by governments, a minimum acceptance is all there is. I do not focus heavily on the positives of the Civil Rights Movement, most school textbooks have a very poor teaching of racism after the movement. I try to discuss ways in which the governments could take action and how we ourselves can change things (protesting, educating and harnessing white privilege). They did it in the Civil Rights Movement, we can do it now.
Note: I am not a scholar, I am just an angry law student; forgive any errors. I also know this is shoddy referencing work but everything has been cited - just not beautifully.
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
were seen suspended by the neck, with their limbs apparently stretched and torn from one extremity to the other. The
slaves were the property of the demon, in the shape of a woman’ 38 Another harrowing case was reported by a British
military officer where a woman began beating an enslaved woman with the heel of her shoe until ‘it was almost all of a
jelly’. The woman then threw the enslaved woman on the ground and stomped on her head until her now severely
disfigured head became to slip through a hole in the ground. 39 State v Morris 40 was, however, the first appeal for a
criminal conviction for cruelty to a slave. 41 The defendant had beaten his slave ‘in a cruel and barbarous manner…
causing sundry dangerous and severe bruises and wounds upon the thigh, loins, and other parts of the body. A hole in
the abdomen, the size of a dollar which appeared to have been gouged out’ was the immediate cause of death. 42 Morris
was found guilty; this is a rare result.
It is important, before attempting to analyse contemporary law to note that the American legal system, much like the
British legal system, was designed to subjugate. The American Constitution does not mention slavery until 1865 with
the adoption of the 13 th Amendment and yet is riddled with provisions protecting slavery without making explicit
mention of it. 43 The ‘Against Runaway Servants’ Act 44 was the first clear reference to slavery. The act punished
runaway servants by extending servitude and branding them. It was in 1659-60 that Virginia first recognised slavery,
considering Africans to be property or ‘things’ rather than persons. 45 In 1661, Virginia passed its first police regulation
of slaves, particularly tackling the problem of European servants escaping with slaves. The first significant piece of
legislation related to the children of white men and African women as under the common laws at the time, the status
of a child born out of wedlock followed the status of the father meaning these children would be born free. The 1662
statute solved this issue for white male slave owners who wished to still have sex with African women, stating ‘that all
children borne in this country shall be held bond of free only according to the condition of the mother’. 46 Another law
excused owners from liability if a slave died from punishment: ‘it cannot be presumed that prepensed malice…should
induce any man to destroy his own estate’. 47 A law of 1680 further limited the protection of the common law by
making it legal to kill any escaped slaves. 48 Most significant was the ‘Gag Rule’ passed during the 24 th Congress which
prohibited the House of Representatives from considering anti-slavery petitions (finally ruled unconstitutional in 1844
by John Quincy Adams). 49 These are just some examples of the law enforcing slavery. America, along with many other
nations, is built on the blood of slaves.
After the end of the American Civil War, the famous 13 th Amendment was ratified along with the 14 th and 15 th
Amendments. The 14 th Amendment granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the US, including former
slaves and the 15 th Amendment granted the right to vote irrespective of race, colour, or previous condition of
servitude. African Americans were free and they were citizens. These amendments of the US Constitution brought
about the Reconstruction Period which sought to bring the nation back together, bringing hope to African Americans
(note however that Mississippi did not ratify the 13 th Amendment outlawing slavery until 1995). A significant program
38
The New Orleans Bee, April 11-12 Issue, 1834.
39
Marisa Joanna Fuentes, ‘“Buried Landscapes: Enslaved Black Women, Sex, Confinement and Death in Colonial Bridgetown, Barbados and
Charleston, South Carolina’ (2007) PhD, University of California, Berkeley.
40
State v Morris 4 La. Ann 177 (1849).
41
n 35
42
ibid, State v Morris
43
Paul Finkelman, ‘Slavery in the United States: Persons or Property?’ (2012)
44
‘Against Runaway Servants’ Act XVI, March, 1657–58, 1 Hening 440.
45
‘An Act for the Dutch and all other Strangers for Tradeing to this Place’ Act XVI, March,
1659–60, 1 Hening 540.
46
‘Negro womens children to serve according to the condition of the mother’, Act XII, December
1662, 2 Hening 170. Emphasis in the original. (NOTE: Slave fathers had no control of their children regardless)
47
‘An act about the casuall killing of slaves’, Act I, October 1669, 1 Hening 270.
48
Act X, June 1680, 2 Hening 481.
49
<https://history.house.gov/HistoricalHighlight/Detail/35837> accessed 3 June 2020
5
Change language