Book Project Idea For Anyone Who's Willing

Through my Section 3 research, I've concluded that there is an interesting story for someone to tell about Republican judges in the South during Reconstruction. The federal judges that enforced desegregation there in the 1950s are well-known. But hardly anyone knows their counterparts who tried and failed to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment in the 1860s and 1870s.  For example, there were rulings striking down state laws banning interracial marriage as unconstitutional, declaring racial segregation illegal, and strongly enforcing the Ku Klux Klan Act. In response, these judges were threatened, accused of corruption, or worse.

Who were the judges? Two of them were John Underwood of Virginia and Richard Busteed of Alabama (who survived an assassination attempt in 1867). I'll mention some other names in a future post.