Fathers of Conscience with Bernie D. Jones

Rebroadcast

Fathers of Conscience

Mixed-Race Inheritance in the Antebellum South Bernice Bennett and Natonne Elaine Kemp welcome author Bernie D. Jones for an engaging discussion about her book - Fathers of Conscience - Mixed-Race Inheritance in the Antebellum South.

Fathers of Conscience examines high-court decisions in the antebellum South that involved wills in which white male planters bequeathed property, freedom, or both to women of color and their mixed-race children. These men, whose wills were contested by their white relatives, had used trusts and estates law to give their slave partners and children official recognition and thus circumvent the law of slavery. The will contests that followed determined whether that elevated status would be approved or denied by courts of law.

Jones is Associate Professor, Suffolk University Law School. She is a graduate of the New York University Law School and the University of Virginia Department of History.