I am saddened and stunned to report that legal historian Judith Kelleher Schafer has passed away. Judith was one of the first people I met when I attended my very first American society for Legal History meeting back in 1995 and I remember well how kind she was in talking to me and taking an interest in my work, then in pretty early stages on proslavery legal thought. Judith is legendary for her kindness to newer scholars and for her important work on the legal history of free people of African descent and on enslaved people, particularly in New Orleans. Just this year I relied heavily on her Becoming Free, Remaining Free: Manumission and Enslavement in New Orleans, 1846-1862. She was an important pioneer on the rights (such as they were) of enslaved people to call their "owners" to account through law. And recent work, on freedom suits by a host of historians, such as Lea VanderVelde's important Redemption Songs, builds on Judith's earlier research that demonstrated a surprising number of lawsuits for freedom (to me, anyway, who wouldn't have expected any lawsuits). I am looking forward to the retrospectives on her work and how she reshaped our understanding of slavery and law.
H/t Diana Williams.
Update: Here is Judith's Times-Picayune obituary. H/t Leslie Harris.
Very Sad. Her book Slavery, The Civil Law and the Supreme Court of Louisiana stands as one of my favorites of hers.
Posted by: marc roark | December 18, 2014 at 06:27 AM