About Me
"You can't teach what you don't know. You can't lead where you won't go."
This quote, often attributed to Malcolm X, guided me in creating this project. According to statistics provided annually by the American Bar Association, less than 5% of attorneys in the United States are Black. I am one of those attorneys. And, like many of us, I am a first-generation attorney.
My undergraduate degree is in History. While studying, I gravitated toward oral history traditions. Often, we think of historians working in libraries, archives, and ruins: trying to uncover stories of the past. But, what if we tell our own stories, sharing our thoughts as we exist today?
Combining both my love of history with my passion for the legal profession, I created this project so that young people may see and hear themselves in the stories of the lawyers, judges, and legal trailblazers. These stories and the lessons they contain reveal a spirit of resiliency contained by our ancestors and living through the work we do today.
Enjoy the experience,
Ebony Love
About Oral History
"The movement, without storytelling, is like birds without wings." - Congressman John Lewis
Storytelling as a tradition is as ancient as the spoken language. In Africa, storytelling was used to pass on culture through sharing memories, proverbs, and preserving language. This tradition transcended time, from before written language, to today.
During the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, storytelling, or oral histories, were used to actively resist human trafficking in the United States. Some stories and songs were coded instructions to help enslaved people escape bondage. Some stories were passed through family members to help future generations understand the horrors of slavery so that the history would be remembered.
This tradition is vital because during the antebellum period, Black people were not allowed to learn to read or write in this country. For example, a slave code passed by South Carolina lawmakers provides:
By the Act of 1834, slaves are prohibited to be taught to read or write, under a penalty (if a
white person may offend) not exceeding $100 fine and six months imprisonment, if a "free
person of color," not exceeding 50 lashes and a fine of $50.
Indeed, while illegal in Southern states for enslaved people to write their own stories, the legal system routinely documented the institution of slavery, with some judges even documenting their approval to the peculiar institution. For example, in Bryan v. Walton, a case about a disputed claim to enslaved people, Justice Joseph Henry Lumpkin, writing for the Supreme Court of Georgia, gave an unsolicited account of the history of slavery in the United States. Bryan v. Walton, 14 Ga. 185, 198–199 (1853). In this account, Justice Lumpkin memorialized his belief that any Black person, whether enslaved or free, would never be entitled to all of the privileges and immunities provided under law. He also detailed the severe punishment for teaching Black people to read and write.
Oral histories are important because they are our link to the past. They allow the people who are the subjects of historical narratives to tell their own stories without their words or message being diluted through a third-party researcher. Journalists and historians began collecting and recording these histories during and after the Civil War, and it is from these histories we are able to understand the stories that were told but never written. Without these stories, our history is incomplete.
Endnotes:
1. O'Neall, John Belton, The Negro Law of South Carolina 23 (1848), accessible at https://archive.org/download/negrolawofsouthc00onea/negrolawofsouthc00onea.pdf
2. "I feel a strong inclination, I confess, to give my sentiments pretty fully upon this subject—to go beyond the usual limits of an opinion[.] . . . But who would commend me for this labor? Or rather, I might ask, who would not condemn me for this tax upon their time and patience?"