By Olivia Saunders
In a recent workshop, UC Santa Barbara English professor Jeannine DeLombard said American legal doctrine granted the status of ‘persons’ to slaves in order to prosecute them, a dynamic that lingered long after emancipation in the criminalization of African Americans.
“Slaves were recognized as criminally responsible, but not having civil rights,” DeLombard said. “And this is mapped onto African Americans today.”
DeLombard grew up in Philadelphia during the height of the Black Power movement. As a young girl attending a predominantly African American school during the 1970s, DeLombard developed an interest in understanding race.
Jeannine Marie DeLombard, an associate professor in UC Santa Barbara’s English department, is currently working on her third book – “Bound to Respect: Democratic Dignity & the Indignities of Slavery.”
“I grew up white and I was very conscious of my whiteness,” said DeLombard. “This made me have a lot of questions about race.”
These questions led DeLombard to earn multiple degrees in African studies, comparative literature, and English. She has published two books – “In the Shadow of the Gallows: Race, Crime, and American Civic Identity,” and “Slavery on Trial: Law, Abolitionism, and Print Culture” – and is currently working on her third.
DeLombard was speaking at a recent meeting she hosted of the “Slavery, Captivity, and the Meaning of Freedom” research focus group under the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center. In the workshop, called “Personhood: Do We Make It or Know It?” DeLombard received feedback from her colleagues on the first chapter of her book manuscript, “Bound to Respect: Democratic Dignity and the Indignities of Slavery.” The chapter reevaluates the concepts of dignity, humanity, and personhood, in direct relation to slavery.
Humanities scholars from the fields of English, classics, and history attended the workshop to offer their input on DeLombard’s first draft. Rose MacLean, an assistant professor of classics, offered her perspective on freed slaves in the Roman Empire. Giuliana Perrone, an assistant professor of history, shared her knowledge of the 19th century U.S. history of slavery and emancipation in the United States. Classics professor Helen Morales and English graduate student Merav Schocken also attended to offer critique.
After short introductions, the group dove right into discussing the critical terms used to talk about slavery.
“Emancipation is the removal of the property aspect [of the slave],” Perrone said. “And personhood is more troubling [for legal practitioners] after emancipation than before.” Perrone explained that since most African Americans had been enslaved, judges struggled to define African Americans’ legal personhood after their emancipation, and whether to consider them equal to “freeborn white Americans.”
MacLean raised the issue of a Christian view on slavery and DeLombard made it clear that she chose to focus on the legal aspect of slavery, not the religious aspect. She used the federal court case United States v. Amy to develop her definition of personhood. If slaves were to be prosecuted, they must be recognized as people instead of property. “In the theory of slave law, the only way slaves get personhood is by having criminal responsibility,” DeLombard said.
DeLombard believes the way society viewed slaves before emancipation has had lasting effects on African Americans today. “People still have trouble seeing Black people pursuing civil activities,” she said. She mentioned the viral video of Philando Castile, who in July, 2016, was shot by a police officer near St. Paul, Minnesota after being pulled over and disclosing to the officer that he was carrying a registered firearm. DeLombard said carrying a registered gun was Castile’s civil right, but the officer misread it as criminal activity.
DeLombard hopes her book will expand the way people understand what it means to be a legal person. “A person is a right-and-duty-bearing unit,” DeLomabrd said, quoting philosopher John Dewey. “I am trying to help us to address the problem of legal status and the denial of being a civil person.”
Olivia Saunders is a second-year UC Santa Barbara student, majoring in Communication. She wrote this piece in her Writing Program course Journalism for Web and Social Media.