How do we think about race? How do we think about the history of racism in the law?

Aaron Freiwald, Managing Partner of Freiwald Law and host of the weekly podcast, Good Law | Bad Law, is joined by Professor Ariela Gross, of the University of Southern California Gould School of Law, to discuss the notion of race, racism, and the laws of freedom. Ariela is the co-author of a new book that explores today’s topic; Becoming Free, Becoming Black: Race, Freedom, and Law in Cuba, Virginia, and Louisiana, tells the story of enslaved and free people of color who used the law to claim freedom and citizenship for themselves and their loved ones.

Looking closely at three slave societies – Cuba, Virginia, and Louisiana – Ariela and her co-author, Alejandro de la Fuente, demonstrate that the law of freedom, not slavery, established the meaning of blackness in law. In today’s conversation, Aaron and Ariela discuss how the laws of freedom were used to determine if it was possible to move from slave status to freedom, and whether or not claims to citizenship would be tied to racial identity. Ariela and Aaron map the history of law and cover a wide array of topics, including: 1690 Havana, white supremacy, claims of identity, Spanish legal practices, the origins of law, “free soil” arguments, and more.

What can this history teach us? And, how does it compare to today?

The John B. and Alice R. Sharp Professor of Law and History at USC, Dr. Gross received both her JD and PhD in History from Stanford. Ariela teaches Contracts, History of American Law, and Race and Gender in the law. Her research and writing focus on race and slavery in the United States. In 2017-18, Ariela was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, and an American Council of Learned Societies Collaborative Research Fellow. She received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Frederick J. Burkhardt Fellowship of the American Council of Learned Societies, and an NEH Huntington Library Long-Term Fellowship to support her research for her 2008 book, What Blood Won’t Tell: A History of Race on Trial in America. In 2010, Ariela was appointed a Distinguished Lecturer by the Organization of American Historians and has been part of the USC Gould faculty since 1996. 

For more information on Professor Gross, please visit her bio page here.

To check out Professor Gross’ new co-authored book, Becoming Free, Becoming Black: Race, Freedom, and Law in Cuba, Virginia, and Louisiana, please click here.

Host: Aaron Freiwald

Guests: Ariela Gross 

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