Transcripts For CSPAN2 Tamika 20240705 : vimarsana.com

Our greatest challenge for that its way spark light is working roundtheclock to keep you connected. We are doing your part so its a little easier to do yours. A spark light, along with these Television Companies support cspan2 as a public service. Doctor nunley is associate professor of history courses and Research Focus on issue of slavery, africanamerican in the early republic. And the American Civil War at cornell university. Her first book at the threshold of liberty woman, slavery andas shifting in washington d. C. It s published by North Carolina press in 2021 which reveals how africanamerican women enslaved fugitive and free imagine new identity and lives beyond their oppressive restrictions and tended to prevent them from extrinsic liberty, selfrespect, and power. She consults a variety of newspapers and documents as a way of thinking about and pursuing the intellectual history and ideas of the africanamerican woman at the time. In her book the demand for justice 1662 to 1855 are published with North Carolinaam press. The legal cases involved of a capitol crime in early virginia. In these legal counters rosia system to work to define and affirm a crimped legal paternalism, but decades the demands for justice is how the articulation of justice shera hs published several articles of the journal of history the william and mary correlate the journal of American History and american legal history as well as the journal of the civil war era. So todays questions are going to be speaking about her second work in the demands for justice. Doctor nunley met my first question for you is how did this project start . How do you define capitol crimee in the sink virginia . Thank you for the introduction thank you for being here. I know that is no small feat so i appreciate you all. This book started, as an Archival Research and i was doing my first book about black women in d. C. That at the time required me too look at virginia cases to because d. C. Was connected to alexandria in 1846. As i looked at a lot of virginia records as well. Ana started coming across a lot of cases that involved enslaved women who murdered their enslavers. All Historic Preservation to try to restore the courthouse there. We were trying to tell a story about a woman named agnes who was house and the legal complex in the jail for murdering her enslavers. Th and so i began to sort of think about these women. I was finishing up my first book but i was always thinking about these other women in virginia more broadly. And i became interested in what is all this mean you think about an enslaved woman against her enslavers are you automatically assume she is going toe die, shes going to be executed. What i found is that was not always the case. Many of them were granted clemency. Whats interesting did not mean you are free from slavery, free from your and slavery. Clemency meant you were sold to the deep south at best. And so if that is the case, what is clemency . And also what is justice under this legal system . I began to probe deeper into the origins of justice in our american legal system. So Flash Forward december 2019 my students are preparing for their final exams i have about a week in between exams and classes. I should go back and collect the rest of those cases. And so i collected all of the cases i could from the library of virginia and i came home i celebrated the holidays, started the new semester and march 2020 happened. I had a lot of time on my hands and i ended up writing this book on the porch. And i wrote this book michael had an urgency when i was writing this book because this is also during a time when you began to see a lot of Police Brutality with george floyd embryonic taylor and many of us were organizing and marching and i was organizing and marching in cleveland. What i was marching i was thinking to myself, what are we doing . What are we all doing here . Part of me felt a little helpless. Because at that time there was a present and office. He was adding fuel to the fire. And i was trying to figure out we are all here because theres something insufficient about justice at is exists in our current legalm. System. We are marching because winds doing torealize a more fuller ee reach of justice. And then i began to answer the question, how long have we been doing this . I assume we have been doing this since we got here. And then i think my assumption was right. As i began to write this history i began to look at the actual actions of enslaved women to work committing capitol crime. Not nearly evidence of their violent behavior. Not merely evidence of what slavery was. But also evidence of black women and girls articulations of justice. That somehow, by their responses to their enslavers they were acting upon their own economy. Their own set of values around what was right and what was wrong. I a lot of the women in this book were brought to the brink of desperation. They said this is enough we cannot do this anymore. Of and so these stories, for those of you who have read it know these stories arere pretty heavy because it really shows a more f extreme cases of the sadistic violence many of the enslaved girls experience that brought them to the violent responses. Thats not what we tend to think about with clemency. Clemency is something different. Its really about the American Government wrestling with its own limitations of justice. There are people who made the laws new clemency is not a purest form ofce justice. They knew this form of clemency was serving the slave economy. And so historians have typically treated this not in the way they are. What had you with slavery into the economy. That leads us into our next question. As you explored county Court Records you focus your attention on unearthing the voices of enslaved women. Bringing their experiences to the forefront . Brexit is really hard to do that kind of work i dont know if i did it well or not but i certainly tried to. Al these legal cases in these legal documents are problematic. If a deposition is being taken sake by someone in power is power and authority of the person being deposed. Of that in itself is going to skew the knowledge of information we can get from that source. Im going to use these court cases and try my best to really find and locate the voices of enslaved women and try to ponder and invite the reader to ponder what couldve t happened in this instance . Where their gaps, silences, what could have filled the gaps and silences without definitively answer what happened. These sources are violent in and of themselves. They commit at kind of violence they are silencing black women. I do my best to not decide but invite the reader into it of what could have been. You are the possibilities. This is aex broader this happend and this is what we know. So what we take away from this . So in some ways its very challenging. Sometimes is unsatisfying because some stories appear more substantial with more detail and others appear with just a name and incident or a charge. And so in that sense those court cases were very difficult to work with. What was it specifically about virginia that is unique it was that unique study to think about leniency and clemency with relationship . Virginia is so interesting. Virginia is a very elite Southern States. It has tremendous significance during the early 19th century and throughout the 19th century. A lot of the laws that were enacted during that early. Became a model for other states in the south. And often times virginia served as a model Slave Society for other Southern States in the union. It has a long political lineage with the madison, with jefferson, with all these political elites. And so in that sense it became an interesting test case to think about the struggle between how do we make real justice but accommodate the interest of slaveholders because that is a thing to do politically in the south. And i think virginia captured that very beautifully. I like what you said, accommodate the interests ofhi slave masters like holders will still grappling with the limitations of the justice system. How do you see that tension reconciling or if it can be reconciled with clemency being used as a way . The economic interest in the role of capitalism throughout the 19th century is a powerful force in politics and also in the law. The legal technologies and innovations weve seen in the south are connected to the institution of slavery and upholding the economic rates the Property Rights in particular of enslavers. These people who arere enslavedo not have the same rights. And these dueling i cannot really dueling interest because this is the interest. They are enslaved women are seen as the property of the enslavers. It is to make sure there was jurisprudence that reflected that interest in investment. And in slavery. Specifically, how does demand for Justice Department the dominant geography that historians think about in terms of the state functioning its efforts to preserve, protect and continue . Many historians of virginia on theut south have looked at tt Legal Technology of clemency there is almost a legal purity to the legal system. There is justice, theres room for justice. During this early. And i think my treatment of clemency really looks at the best case scenario. It becomes clear out the legal terrain of justice is quite narrow. And its designated for the few. And so in that way at my book departs from the traditional scholarly literature. It also departs and how i read the sources. I read the sources not the lawmakers the screen the documents at the center and notb say mess the wrong thing to do in fact they probably think ica have done the wrong thing. I have read a lot into the actual actions and the crimes that enslaved women were charged with. To reconsider their world. And to center them. That work requires intellectual risk thus not always certain. Thats not always supported substantially. Nobody is deposing enslaved women because they care about what they think. I aim to center their voices is going to be very complicated. Absolutely. So when comparing enslaved women who were able to sue for their freedom the women and girls were charged with crimes you assert that intellectual history needed to understand the intersection between race, gender,r, law. That does not address it. It does do a good job particularly black women historians who have really thought carefully about the reproductive lives of enslaved women. Wasnt inherited to the bodys emblems of enslavedaw women froa law passed in 1662 in virginia. That altered their sexual lives and informed the violence we see book. At that is the case gender creates another motive analysis for understanding how the systems work to extract laborers from enslaved women the reproductive labor their mental labor. Hope we can begin to look at what their lives really look like and how they responded but we can get is a completely different way of understanding what slavery was. In a completely different way of understanding what the south was. Intellectual history thats been articulated by enslaved women who have said enough. What would you want people to take away . You could say things concretely definitively what would they be . You are asking a historian to do that. [laughter] we are not concise. As you will read. [laughter] my hope for the book as it will spark conversations. I am not the kind of historian that feels like i need to have the last say. S i hope it triggers them in theaf conversation and questions. I hope scholars after me for completely trash the work and do something better. More than anything i just want to re center of the conversation on enslaved women and girls. And kind of shift the focus a bit to see what we could come up with. Can you give me a little bit more . You said you wanted me too be concise. I think about the weight you re centered and your in your es and the way to understand they do or inexperienced slavery. But again you talked about it a little bit more i would see through the use of clemency as a way limitations of the state and laws have created. There is a tension that emerges between this for justice and relation to what they demand and expect to receive it. As you think about or could you situate the work within the largest course . What do you see as being foundational, instrumental to that process . What is foundational to that process is questioning the purity of american law. I mean if you look at the lives of black people, we have been on a constant liberation struggle since we got here. And in that liberation struggle we have intellectually been trying to expand their reach and access of justice because theres something insufficient about our legal system as it exists. And so that is kind of the foundational premise of it. Beautiful. Rights of a couple questions about your writing process and your experience writing. What was one of her greatest accomplishments during the writing process and a couple of your greatest struggles . The greatest accomplishment is that it is done. Now onto the struggle. [laughter] is in full transparency of the struggle is being a descendent of enslaved people and having to everyday revisit the horror and the trauma, the violence and the pain that people have endured under the system. When that is your lifes work you need some lighter stuff in your life. In that way it was challenging to keep it together. And the reason why i say that is because sometimes you dont take a breath and it impacts your ability the time and place for what it was. And so in that sense i struggle. I also struggle with sources. Like i said, nobody cares about what black women feel and think in those moments. I take a lot of intellectual risk in posing questions perhaps this person mightve felt thisd way. Which may or may not be frustrating for the reader. Think im okay with that though. When you are writing and when you are producing work it is kind of a life long process. And thats why i say i hope future generations commenter of the whole thing up. And do something better. They can build and follow you. It may not have anything to buildu on. And i am excited young people on the kind of questions they have about this time. Thank you. No all right, now we have about 20 minutes for questions. Please walk up to a microphone and speak directly into the microphone so we can hear you. I want to congratulate you on having the courage to write this book. It had to be extremely painful and hurtful to read about blacko women and the struggles of slavery and what their purpose was which was to produce more babies or labor or whatever. And it caused me too sink of what is happening today. That white women are going to start feeling the pain and the lives that black women lived during slavery because our reproductives freedoms are being taken away from a white women but never had to worry about it. And it is now because it is coming. All of those freedoms we had for 50 years make the right decision about our bodies. That has been taken away. At reproductive Birth Control is going be taken away two. Your book is going to be foundational i think for women to understand what that means. And i hope your book is going to be read widely. I hope so too. [laughter] and i will do my best to spread the word. Thank you, thank you for that. I wrote a piece in the Washington Post this year about that very issue thinking about our contemporary moment in the ways in which we have really narrowed down our reproductive rate. There is a very real resistance and in many states are starting to criminalize lots of things and Birth Control being one off them. One of the lessons we cannot wen from this is legal precedent does not have to be our go to when we are thinking about our legal futures. There is a tradition there that look back and the lobby comes this glorified feature. One of the bight list of compliments it is shaped in particular ways that have consequences for women, for immigrants, for lots of folks. And thinking about the law is a technology but we are constantly either reconstituting and packaging or advancing or innovating can be helpful moving forward. How much does legal precedent really matter . How much of these older laws apply to a contemporary moment . In the article and talk about reproductive technologies and how they are becoming problematic. Judges are reflecting back on slave laws in order to decide cases involving fertility technology. [laughter] like we cannot over into lies ourselves into foolishness. At some point we need to step back and ask these questions. And i know they are more complex its much more complex do you question is this the right posture legally to take or is there an opportunity to think creatively about our moment what technology does in response to f the body and the market. I have questions whether not good. [laughter] you be the judge of that. The first one but what was there perspective of clemency at that time . And was there a one case or a couple cases that stood out to you that made you put everything down, you had to take a walk and come back to it . Those are great questions. [laughter] what that enslaved women think about clemency . It depends upon the women. We do not have a full picture of that i have inferred that. It depends. If you are enslaved on a plantation you share very importanton familiar relationshs and night be sold from deep south never to be sold again clemency is going to have a deep effect. If you were one of a handful of enslaved people in that place was filled with so much torment that you tried to murder you are in slaver youre probably not trying to go back there, right . E just knowing about the deep south and what the slave market was like made everyone afraid of being sold. Because everything was so uncertain. You are traveling hundreds and sometimes thousands of miles across the country to a completely foreign place. If you have no ties to anybody and you do not know who this in slaver is about to be. If you have committed a crime the in slaver who buys you know she committed that crime and they are going to think you are rebellious and need to be put in check. So you can onlyd imagine the kid of strategies that were used for enslaved woman for a little girl arrived to that plantation. So it varied. For them and this is what i want to convey to historians. Not thinking about the integrity of clemency. Theyre like where my going . And in the words of my cousin who allgh going to be there, right . And for some they may not be thinking about any of those things at all. How does one think about ones future when you have had a pasts that looks like that . That is kind of how i write. I dont have a diary of us in slave girls reflections on this. But i tried to situate my mind in that place as best as i can. And in a spirit of a bolder vulnerability and try to consider with the possibilities might have been. Is there a story . E there are lots of stories per there is one particular story in the last chapter enslaved girl named peggy was enslaved by her father. Who tried to rape her. So her father tried to rape her and would chain her to iraq in front of the house and torment her and would have other enslaved men hold her down for he tormented her. And then one day she got those same guys and they said lets get rid of him. And so they tied him up in the house and they beat him with an ax. They went back outside, took a whole pile of hay. Through it in the house with him tied up in their inset that house on fire. I had such a range of emotions while reading them. Was like okay, right . There is so much to unpack. There is so much to unpack. And what is justice . I am wincing at the eye dia justice existing in this context. This is in your face. You talk about terror. As a certain kind of historians or criminal legal cases. I am like is that a crime though . Lets unpack that. Was o there Something Else going on . And it sitting with it. Okay, we have been drawing chilling p the parallels from today in previousat centuries. The two popular phrases today stand your ground and qualified immunity. Can you expand upon that . Emily for law enforcement. Its the cave youve got on a uniform and a badge you shoot anybody feel threatened about even if they are not armed and just yelling . I think of sandra bland. Yesbs absolutely. And to stand your ground you just step on someones doorstep. Court make the mistake of turning around in your driveway and they can shoot you. That seems to me the right over any they claim to feel threatened by so i draw a parallel between that and slaveholders were automatically white and so many ways in back of the day. And god forbid there is a woman challenging him it. So if you could comment about that but. About the historical connection between those . Yes. Yes absolutely. Policing authority, Legal Authority holds a particular place in our society and how it is organized. And so what is interesting about the early 19th century issue did notu have to be an officer you can be part of the local white militia. Operating in ache official capacity. This earlier. In time. The inside violence has become so normalized in our society. And also the disposability of black bodies. The black bodies can be maimed, can be killed. And that becomes normalized and our dynamics and how it relates to one another and how we think about power in society. Not every officer is white. Its more complex so what is the role of the state and inflicting that violence, authorizing that violent and never having to account for that violence, for the life that is lost . And so it really is the continued protest against Police Brutality that is reflected of earlier protests and former protest of enslaved people to challenge how power is organized that through line is absolutely there. E. Please limit you write about must be so brave and courageous. I have not read your book but i am going too. I was just wondering, are there descendents of the wonderful brave women we could find out about . In a way to celebrate these womens lives . Im wondering if theres a way to trace their descendents and see what they think about these women . Thank you for the question. I imagine there are communities. They are hard to locate though because they were executed its hard to know if they had children that remained in virginia. There are lots of heavily organized communities in the south and in local communities. And so that we have going for us. But the thing we have working against us is those were grants of clemency were sold to other parts of thehe south and often times we do not know where. Takes a different price of the south to beda sold. They are difficult to find. For those who remained in virginia the chances could be hired to locate communities. Its important to do that work as historians. Thank you so much for this message. I have not read your book yet but i intend to after this discussion. I want to talk about the struggle between the intersection between race and gender. K so, there is a fear among my personal circle for black women will be help the womens liberation that once we get to the proverbial Promised Land we will look aside and see our women who say thank you for helping us get there but we no longer need your services. Another set of struggles. His counterparts would have liked. Similarly it does it continue for black women on the race side once we reach the proverbial Promised Land will receive the mail counterparts now know your place as a woman went back to the 1950s when women could not have bank accounts. We have a struggle with our mail thats an interesting question. I dont struggle withh that its been really being a part of my generation we assume the shoulder black feminists who have been really great about articulating in theoretical frameworks out our own autonomy that do not have toxic forms of powerer we have a mutual existee and a mutual ethic of care for one another. Helps us thrive as a people one of the things i think about aom lot she got a job to the wpa to be a seamstress at a hospital and was able to purchase her own home and how to an apartment on the side and let somebody rent that out. She had a garden and anyone who came to the garden could eat from that garden. No one on her street will ever went hungry had a Christmas Savings Club like each of them put a little bit in the pot. Kn 101 needed they got to take from the pot and they put it back in the potom and someone ee would get something from the pot. So i think really getting back to the ethics as a community of care and kinship. Not focusing on trading toxic Power Dynamics is our way forward. Seeing our mutual values are collective value and humanity and dignity is really where we have the power to thrive together. That is when we are at our best. We are at our worst when we tried to impose power in a way thats really demeaning. With that we have exactly six minutes left and you asked me a question. Her right. One more, one more. [laughter] i was curious in your research did things get worse firstly people on the south as the Abolition Movement grow the north . Or things always was horrible for people in the south . Its a lot more strict. The law throughout more strict serve the clemency rates than about half of the people were executed and half or grantor clemency. That tension manifested itself in weird ways. Reinforced by credit more strict laws there were rebellions there were dynamics of resistance. And yet still there was a preoccupation with appearing evenhanded as well. Evenhandedness with a particular way to the lawmakers looked it lookedevenhanded to them fore enslaved women being sold out side does not bill evenhanded. Its a political realm thats happening and there is resistance on the ground. Those things are constantly clashing. Virginia lawmakers tried to create stricter laws but how they decide the cases is not change as dramatically. It is complex and does not think what you think it would be which makes history interesting. Youd think a be completely skewed in execution but it was not. Thank you for that question. This is a very quick one. Are you the first one to write something about this event of the enslaved women . No, not at all. Not at all but there are hosts historians like wim akin, schwartz and that generation of historians who been thinking about what these violent acts mean illegally. I was not aware of other writers. But i dont think stevenson included this. He is a more contemporary scholar. One is deafly connected. There is a robust field of scholars who were historians ofi the south back in the 70s and 80s delete laid the groundwork to understand how the laws are changing. An how the courts were also changing what these legal suits meant i am part of a generation of historians who are centered around a black ethic of ethics f centering on the voices. Congratulations on that for a quick thank you, think of your question. With that lets give a warm applause of gratitude. Nonfiction book lovers is ever podcast for you. Nonfiction authors and influential influencers on the after words podcast. On cue na are wide ranging conversation with the nonfiction authors and others who are making things happen. But notes plus episodes are weekly hourlong conversations that regularly feature fascinating authors of nonfiction books on a wide variety of topics. The about box podcast takes you behind the scenes with insider interviews. 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