Until Justice Be Done

A remarkable and shattering book....Breathtakingly fresh. -- Harold Holzer - Wall Street Journal Revelatory....excellent....If this is a clear-eyed book, it's still a heartening one. -- Jennifer Szalai - New York Times Momentous...a brilliant meditation on progress and its limits. -- John Fabian Witt - Washington Post At a time when definitions of citizenship and civil rights are again under assault, Masur's careful accounting of the ways Americans came to understand such terms provides an informed perspective to appreciate that such concepts never were, and thus never are, self-evident. They require due diligence and vigilance to secure and sustain at all levels of government. An essential book. -- Library Journal (starred review) Kate Masur's masterpiece is an extraordinary contribution to our understanding of the central role of African Americans in conceiving American democracy. -- Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, author of Race for Profit In this brilliant book, Kate Masur widens and deepens our understanding of the long struggle against racism throughout the United States. -- Alan Taylor, author of Thomas Jefferson's Education Kate Masur's Until Justice Be Done is a masterpiece of scope, insight, and graceful writing about the central question in the making, unmaking, and remaking of an American democracy. This is a book we will read and conjure with for a long time. -- David W. Blight, author of Frederick Douglass A tour de force: Until Justice Be Done is the eloquent and essential story of what the first civil rights movement achieved, and what it left for later generations to do. -- W. Caleb McDaniel, author of Sweet Taste of Liberty A magnificent contribution to the history of antiracism in America. -- Randall Kennedy, author of For Discrimination [A] tour de force of scholarship and lucid analysis. -- James M. McPherson, author of Battle Cry of Freedom Until Justice Be Done tells the origin story of one of the most important and often-misunderstood ideas in American law and politics: racial equality before the law. It is a brilliant book. -- Dylan C. Penningroth, author of The Claims of Kinfolk In our current moment, as we imagine paths forward for American democracy, Kate Masur's revelatory book is essential reading. -- Daniel J. Sharfstein, author of Thunder in the Mountains Kate Masur's sobering and inspiring history of the 'first civil rights movement' could not be more timely. -- Steven Hahn, author of A Nation Under Our Feet [I]lluminating history...This engrossing study goes beyond sectionalist accounts of the South's peculiar institution to show how racism and civil rights activism have shaped every corner of America. -- Publishers Weekly A fine history of the first phase of the nation's most enduring moral reform effort. -- Kirkus Reviews