Books by Stephen Middleton

Beginning in 1803, the Ohio legislature enacted what came to be known as the Black Laws. These laws instituted barriers against blacks entering the state and placed limits on black testimony against whites. This book tells the story of racial oppression in Ohio.

During the Reconstruction, African Americans from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia-former slave-owning states-were elected to Congress in remarkable numbers.

Within each state, the documents are arranged into sets on specific topics such as immigration laws, welfare and public education laws, and jury and testimony laws. Although in general the editor lets the documents speak for themselves, he introduces each set of documents with commentary pointing to the themes in the documents.