Margaret A. Burnham is the director of Northeastern University's Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project. In this deeply researched book, Burnham explores the relationship between formal law and Legal norms during the Jim Crow era. Reviewing harrowing legal cases from 1920 to 1960, she reviews the criminal legal system in the South during those years, tracing a line from slavery to the legal structures of the era to today. Combining years of research with first-person accounts, this eye-opening book is an important contribution to the history of our country.