{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.02720820189274448, 'fraction_numerical': 0.00946372239747634, 'mean_word_length': 5.358395989974937, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Henry George and the Crisis of Inequality: Progress and Poverty in the Gilded Age

comes had personal and not societal benefits during the first half of the twentieth century. Since litigants had to show “weakness and inferiority,” they inadvertently reinforced the Lost Cause and white supremacist racial attitudes (p. 123). Despite this shift, the courts gave them an avenue in fraud and personal injury suits. Since fraud had clear ways to either prove or dismiss, these cases required coaching as well as “choreographed performances to strengthen their cases” (p. 136). “By representing themselves as lacking power,” Milewski concludes that African Americans’ legal rights “had not been completely wrested away” (p. 143). Litigants also found success with personal injury suits. Although emphasizing their vulnerability, success led to increased safety measures and made later cases difficult to pursue. In her last major chapter, Milewski shows howWorld War I, the Great Depression, the Great Migration and World War II influenced African Americans’ use of the courts to make broader societal claims in pursuing personal economic justice. Between 1921 and 1950, the types of cases expanded to include insurance, damages, contracts, education, and racial discrimination. Tactics also shifted. Litigants now challenged Jim Crow violence, intimidation, and even racial discrimination; in the Chaires v. City of Atlanta (1926) case, black barbers successfully demonstrated that a city ordinance limiting their white clientele violated their Fourteenth Amendment rights. Milewski contrasts these ordinary African American litigants with NAACP-endorsed litigants, who saw their cases as direct challenges to overturn the entire Jim Crow system. While these cases overshadow those of ordinary black litigants, she persuasively demonstrates that these cases over personal economic matters “were just as radical and significant as cases focused on civil rights that gained the nation’s attention” (p. 190). Throughout Litigating Across the Color Line, Melissa Milewski displays mastery over her sources. She brings both drama and weight to her claims with the unfolding of the specific cases introduced in the opening chapter vignettes. While it might seem that Milewski overstates the success of the litigants, her detailed tables and use of sources reveal otherwise. Though the legalese might prove inaccessible at times, this work is a worthy addition for both graduate students and scholars interested in African American legal history.