Black Lives Matter is a US grassroots activist movement which campaigns to affirm the value of black lives and to end police discriminatory treatment and violence against African Americans. The BLM movement began on social media in July 2013 with the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter in response to the acquittal of a Hispanic neighborhood watch volunteer, of shooting and killing a 17 year old unarmed African American student, Trayvon Martin. This movement continued to grow as it achieved national and global attention following the shooting death of Michael Brown, another unarmed African American teenager, this time by a white police officer in August 2014.
Recently, the movement exploded onto national and global headlines following the May 2020 George Floyd murder by Minneapolis police office Derek Chauvin. According to polls, an estimated 15 to 26 million people protested in the United States. Although the BLM advocates for non-violent civil disobedience protests, demonstrations and protests in numerous cities erupted into rioting, looting and violence.
Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law
February is a month dedicated to observing African American history. It celebrates the achievements of Black Americans while recognizing their central role in U.S. history. As we take this time to reflect upon our nation’s history, HeinOnline, a premier online database containing millions of pages of historical and government documents, encourages everyone to check out these fabulous resources.
Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law brings together a multitude of essential legal materials on slavery in the United States and the English-speaking world. This includes every statute passed by every colony and state on slavery, every federal statute dealing with slavery, and all reported state and federal cases on slavery. Our case coverage extends into the 20th century because long after slavery was ended, there were still court cases based on issues emanating from slavery. To give one example, as late as 1901 Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court had to decide if a man, both of whose parents had been slaves, could be the legitimate heir of his father because, under southern law, slaves could never be legally married.
We have also gathered every English-language legal commentary on slavery published before 1920, which includes many essays and articles in obscure, hard-to-find journals in the United States and elsewhere. We include many modern histories of slavery. Within this library is a section containing all modern law review articles on the subject. This library will continue to grow, not only from new scholarship but also from historical material that we continue to locate and add to the collection.
What's included:
AUGUST 21 TO DECEMBER 16
