Until Justice Be Done America's First Civil Rights Movement, from the Revolution to Reconstruction

What Melissa just outlined is essentially the premise of our current Strict Scrutiny Summer Read until justice be done, America's first civil rights movement. By Kate Mazur, a professor of history and the Board of Visitors Professor at Northwestern University.

In this Pulitzer nominated book, Mazur traces an underexplored period in the fight for black civil rights, that is the period following the American Revolution and leading up to the American Civil War.

there was an ongoing debate about whether and how to vindicate the civil rights of free blacks in these jurisdictions.

And so you have on that petitioning side is like that the process of creating the petitions and sending them in is also a mobilizing process.

The book is called until justice be done America's first civil rights movement and it is available at all major booksellers including bookshop.org a strict scrutiny sponsor.

Here with me to discuss the Black Coats, the Fugitive Slave Act, and the run-up to the Civil War is Dr. Kate Maser. She's a professor of history at Northwestern University and author of the book Until Justice Be Done, America's First Civil Rights Movement, From the Revolution to Reconstruction.

So, when you first started working on your book Until Justice Be Done, I'm curious why you went back to this period leading up to the Civil War, having written some books about the Civil War and afterwards.

And that's what I tried to do with my book, Until Justice Be Done.