On Easter Sunday of 1873, a band of white supremacists marched into Grant Parish, Louisiana, and massacred over one hundred unarmed African Americans. The court case that followed would reach the highest court in the land. Yet not a single person was convicted. The opinion issued by the Supreme Court in US v. Cruikshank set in motion a process that would help create a society in which black Americans were oppressed and denied basic human rights. These injustices would last for the next hundred years, and many continue to exist to this day. In this compelling and thoroughly researched volume for young readers, Lawrence Goldstone traces the evolution of the law in the story of how the Supreme Court helped institutionalize racism in the American justice system.

A new government : Alexander Hamilton and "Brutus" -- The Supreme Court is born : John Marshall -- Less than human : Roger Taney and Dred Scott -- Remaking America : Andrew Johnson and Thaddeus Stevens -- Some odd arithmetic : who won the war? -- Two amendments and a dream of equality : John Bingham -- The Klan : Nathan Bedford Forrest and Mary Polk Branch -- Reconstruction in black and white : Harriet Ann Jacobs and Frank Alexander Montgomery -- An island for Freedmen : Colfax -- Fraud runs wild : Samuel McEnery and William Kellogg -- Reconstruction ascendant : Blanche K. Bruce -- Massacre : James Hadnot -- The wheels of justice : J.R. Beckwith -- Civil rights on trial -- Is justice language or an idea? : Joseph P. Bradley -- The most important judge in the nation : Morrison Waite -- Civil rights : Charles Sumner -- One hundred years of freedom : Philadelphia and the White League -- The end of the line -- President by one vote : the Fifteenth Man.