Jury Discrimination

Like John Steinbeck, who used 'interchapter' in Grapes of Wrath (1939), or William Faulkner, who wrote The Wild Palms (1939) as alternating chapters of two separate stories, Christopher Waldrep has created a most interesting structure for his book Jury Discrimination. . . .This book will find interested readers among lawyers, history professors, college students, and the general adult reader interested in southern history and race relations. It is recommended highly for all academic and large public libraries.

--Stephen Cresswell "Journal of Southern History"

Technically impressive, convincingly argued, and engagingly written, Waldrep's history of the Supreme Court decisions and public policy debates that shaped the practice of jury discrimination in the nineteenth century should be read by lawyers and historians as well as by the broader public. It is a fascinating, and sometimes surprising, story.

--Michael Perman "author of Pursuit of Unity"

Waldrep presents a deeply researched, heavily documented empirical study. His book focuses less on Mississippi per se than on the intersection of principle, public opinion, and race in determining late nineteenth century readings of the Fourteenth Amendment.

--John David Smith "Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era"

Jury Discrimination provides a thorough examination of the often-contentious relationship between reality and constitutional principles, between state action and federal authority, and of the racial disparity that in some measure still exists within the American legal system.

--Register of the Kentucky Historical Society

A solid work of scholarly history as well as an intelligent rumination on deeply rooted racial prejudice. An exceptional work.

--Choice

Scholars of the nineteenth-century U.S. Supreme Court and the Fourteenth Amendment, among others, will find Waldrep's contributions to a wide range of historiographical controversies to be especially useful. In sum, this is a masterful book that succeeds on many levels and merits a wide and diverse readership.

--American Historical Review

This book effectively highlights the variability of Jim Crow--even in Mississippi, even during the darkest years of white supremacist rule--and the sometimes unexpected power of the law.

--Law and History Review

Waldrep tells how two lawyers cooperated in 1906 to achieve, if only for a brief time, the racial integration of juries in Mississippi. This story is told in accessible prose that will appeal to general readers

--Journal of American History