Birthright Citizens: A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America

Birthright Citizens tells how African American activists radically transformed the terms of citizenship for all Americans.



Before the Civil War, colonization schemes and black laws threatened to deport former slaves born in the United States. Birthright Citizens recovers the story of how African American activists remade national belonging through battles in legislatures, conventions, and courthouses. They faced formidable opposition, most notoriously from the US Supreme Court decision in D...