Politics and Prose
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Tamika Y. Nunley — The Demands of Justice - with Marcia Chatelain
Posted
April 30, 2023
Views
854
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33
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April 30, 2023
854
33
3.86%
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49:51Now PlayingWatch author Tamika Y. Nunley's book talk and reading at Politics and Prose book store in Washington, D.C.
Award-winning historian Tamika Y. Nunley has unearthed the stories of enslaved Black women charged by their owners with poisoning, theft, murder, infanticide, and arson. While free Black and white people accused of capital crimes received a hearing, trial, and, if convicted, an opportunity to appeal, none of these options were available to enslaved people. Conviction was final, and only the state or owners could spare their accused chattel of punishment by death. For enslaved women in Virginia, clemency was not uncommon, but Nunley shows why this act ultimately benefitted owners and punished the accused with sale outside of the state as the best possible outcome.
Demonstrating how crimes, convictions, and clemency functioned within a slave society that upheld the property interests of white Virginians, Nunley reveals the frequency with which owners preferred to keep the accused in bondage, which allowed them, behind the veil of paternalism, to continue to benefit from Black women's labor. This so-called clemency also sought to rob Black women of the power they exercised when they committed capital crimes. The testimonies that Nunley has collected and analyzed offer compelling glimpses of the self-identities forged by Black women as they attempted to resist enslavement and the limits of justice available to them in the antebellum courtroom.
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Tamika Y. Nunley is associate professor of history at Cornell University.
Nunley is joined in conversation with, Marcia Chatelain, an American academic who serves as a professor of history and African American studies at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. In 2021, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for History for her book Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America, which also won a James Beard Award.
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Founded by Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade in 1984, Politics and Prose Bookstore is Washington, D.C.'s premier independent bookstore and cultural hub, a gathering place for people interested in reading and discussing books. Politics and Prose offers superior service, unusual book choices, and a haven for book lovers in the store and online.
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