Description
The Great Dissenter tells the story of Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan, an American who stood against the forces of Gilded Age America to defend civil rights and economic liberty.
Almost a century after his death, Harlan’s words helped end segregation and shaped modern civil rights. His legacy was shaped in part by Robert Harlan, a slave whom John’s father raised like a son; after the Civil War, Robert became a political leader who helped secure John’s appointment to the Supreme Court.
As the country changed, Northern whites sought to limit Black rights, and giant trusts monopolized industries. Facing a Court that seemed willing to strip away civil rights and invalidate labor protections, Harlan broke with his colleagues and became a leading defender of the rights of Black people, immigrant laborers, and people in lands occupied by the United States. His dissents, particularly in Plessy v. Ferguson, were widely read and provided a source of hope for decades.
Spanning from the Civil War to the Civil Rights movement and beyond, The Great Dissenter examines the American legal system’s failures and its most inspiring successes.
Endorsements
“Superb.” — The Guardian
“Magnificent.” — Douglas Brinkley
“Thoroughly researched.” — The New York Times
“Harlan’s Plessy dissent was my ‘Bible’ and legal roadmap to overturning segregation.” — Thurgood Marshall