The substitution of the dominant Western jurisprudence for South Africa’s indigenous normative values during colonial and apartheid times has resulted in a perverted conception of law that presents Western jurisprudence as synonymous with law. In the era of the constitutional recognition of African law where the application of the democratic principle demands that the newly re-enfranchised African communities deserve to be regulated by their own indigenous values, the resilience of this legal culture has become problematic. To reverse this situation legal and constitutional interpreters must rethink and reshape their contributions to the achievement of the post-apartheid version of African law envisioned by the South African Constitution. The application of African law in a free and liberated environment must reflect its own social, political and legal cosmology in which its institutions operate within their own indigenous frame of reference. A study of the anatomy of African jurisprudence as a means of gaining insight into the indigenous worldview which was characterised by the culture of communal living and the ethos of inclusiveness to counter the prevailing hegemony of autonomous individualism, has become urgent. To achieve this such pillars of African jurisprudence as the philosophy of ubuntu must be exhumed in order for African law’s rehabilitation under the Constitution to be undertaken on the basis of its authentic articulation uncontaminated by colonial and apartheid distortions. The task of developing the African law of the 21st century to the extent required by the Constitution is a challenge of enormous proportions which demands an appreciation of the historical and political environment in which African law lost its primacy as the original legal system of South Africa after Roman-Dutch law was imposed on the South Africa population. The revival of African law becomes more urgent when one considers that when Africans lost control of their legal system they had not abdicated sovereignty voluntarily to the newcomers. The validity of the imposition of Western jurisprudence is vitiated by the colonial use of such imperial acts as colonisation, conquest, and annexation as the basis on which the regime of Roman-Dutch law was imposed on South Africa. Ever since, African law has been subordinated and denigrated through colonial and apartheid policies which relegated it, via the repugnancy clause, to a sub-system of Roman-Dutch law with whose standards it was forced to comply. The repugnancy clause left African law a distorted system no longer recognisable to its own constituency. The advent of the new dispensation introduced a constitutional framework for re-capacitating South Africa’s post-apartheid state institutions to recentre African law as envisioned by the Constitution. This framework has become the basis on which legislative and judicial efforts could rehabilitate the indigenous value system in the application of African law. The courts of the new South Africa have striven to find the synergy between indigenous values and the Bill of Rights in order to forge areas of compatibility between African culture and human rights. An analysis of this phase in the development of African law, as evidenced by the present study, reveals successes and failures on the part of the courts in their efforts to rehabilitate African law in line with both its value system and the Bill of Rights. These findings lead to the conclusion that whilst South Africa’s legislative and judicial institutions have not yet achieved the envisioned version of African law, there is an adequate constitutional framework through which they could still do so. This study, therefore, recommends that the above institutions, especially the courts, should adopt a theory of re-indigenisation that would guide them as they proceed from the indigenous version of African law which is the basis on which to apply the Bill of Rights. The application of such a theory would ensure that the distorted ‘official’ version of African law which was imposed by colonial and apartheid state institutions is progressively discredited and isolated from the body of South African law and gives way to the version inspired by the Constitution. / Constitutional, International and Indigenous Law / LL. D.

American history has celebrated the involvement of black women in the "underground railroad," but little is said about women's everyday resistance to the institutional constraints and abuses of slavery. Many Americans have probably heard of and know about Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth - two very prominent black female resistance leaders and abolitionists-- but this thesis addresses the lives of some of the less-celebrated and lesser-known (more obscure) women; part of the focus is on the common tasks, relationships, burdens, and leadership roles of these very brave enslaved women. Resistance history in the Caribbean and Americas in its various forms has always emphasized the role of men as leaders and heroes. Studies in the last two decades Momsen 1996, Mintz 1996, Bush 1990, Beckles and Shepherd, Ellis 1985, 1996, Hart 1980, 1985) however, are beginning to suggest the enormous contributions of women to the successes of many of the resistance events. Also, research revelations are being made correcting the negative impressions and images of enslaved women as depicted in colonial writings (Mathis 2001, Beckles and Shepherd 1996, Cooper 1994, Campbell 1986, Price 1996, Campbell 1987). Some of these new findings portray women as not only actively at the forefront of colonial military and political resistance operations but performed those activities in addition to their roles as the bearers of their individual original cultures. Their goal was achievement of freedom for their people. Freedom can be seen as a magic word that politicians, propagandists, psychologists and priests throw around with ease. Yet, to others freedom has a different meaning which varies with the individual's sense of associated values. Freedom without qualification is an abstract noun meaning, "not restricted, unimpeded", or simply, "liberty"; but when it is concretized in individual situations its meaning is narrowed, and it becomes clear that no one can be fully free. Yet the love of freedom is one of our deepest feelings, a truly heartfelt cry, freedom of wide open spaces, liberty to enjoy the taste, in unrestricted fashion, of the joys of nature, to live a life free from external anxieties and internal fears; freedom to be truly ourselves. All living creatures, even animals seem to value their freedom above all else. Enslaved people were not submissive towards their oppressors; attempts were made both subtly, overtly and violently to resist their so-called "masters" and slavery conditions. Violent and non-violent resistance were carried out by the enslaved throughout colonial history on both sides of the Atlantic, and modern historical literature shows that women oftentimes displayed more resistance than men. Enslaved Africans started to fight the transatlantic slave trade as soon as it began. Their struggles were multifaceted and covered four continents over four centuries. Still, they have often been underestimated, overlooked, or forgotten. African resistance was reported in European sources only when it concerned attacks on slave ships and company barracoons, but acts of resistance also took place far from the coast and thus escaped the slavers' attention. To discover them, oral history, archaeology, and autobiographies and biographies of African victims of the slave trade have to be probed. Taken together, these various sources offer a detailed image of the varied strategies Africans used to defend themselves and mount attacks against the slave trade in various ways. The Africans' resistance continued in the Americas, by running away, establishing Maroon communities, sabotage, conspiracy, and open uprising against those who held them in captivity. Freed people petitioned the authorities, led information campaigns, and worked actively to abolish the slave trade and slavery. In Europe, black abolitionists launched or participated in civic movements to end the deportation and enslavement of Africans. They too delivered speeches, provided information, wrote newspaper articles and books. Using violent as well as nonviolent means, Africans in Africa, the Americas, and Europe were constantly involved in the fight against the slave trade and slavery. Women are half the human race and they're half of history, as well. Until recent years, Black women's history has been even less than that. Much work has been done studying the lives of slaves in the United States and the slave system. From elementary school in the USA on through college we are taught the evils of slavery that took place right here in the Land of the Free. However, how much do we know about the enslaved in other places, namely the Caribbean? The Caribbean was the doorway to slavery here in the New World, and so it is important that we study the hardships that enslaved people suffered in that area. Slaves regularly resisted their masters in any way they could. Female slaves, in particular, are reported to have had a very strong sense of independence and they regularly resisted slavery using both violent and non-violent means. The focus of my research is on the lives of enslaved women in the Caribbean and their brave resistance to bondage. Caribbean enslaved women exhibited their strong character, independence and exceptional self worth through their opposition to the tasks they performed in the fields on plantations. Resistance was expressed in many different rebellious ways including not getting married, refusing to reproduce, and through various other forms as part of their open physical resistance. The purpose of this project is to identify the role enslaved women in both the Caribbean and the USA played in some of the major uprisings, revolts, and rebellions during their enslavement period. The research identifies individual female personalities, who played key roles in not only the everyday work on plantations, but also in planning resistance movements in the slave communities. This study utilizes plantations records, archival material, and official sources. Archival records from plantations located in archives and county clerks' offices; interviews with sources such as researchers and experts familiar with the plantations of slave communities in designated areas; and research in libraries, as well as other sources, oral histories, written and oral folklore, and personal interviews were used as well.

Scholarly research on the subject of the swift pace of change in support for same-sex marriage has evolved significantly over the last ten years. The shift has gone beyond the scholarship's initial description amongst demographic groups on how opinion has changed on gay rights issues, like same-sex marriage, to an examination of why the change has occurred. A great deal of the initial research on the topic seemed to focus on demographic traits that suggested a greater propensity toward support for same-sex marriage as time went on. Is the existent literature sufficient to explain why such a dramatic change in public opinion has occurred in the United States? My goal in this paper is to explore the plausibility that electoral events and the public dialogue/debate that surround them have accelerated the impact described in the four predominant theories, cohort succession, contact theory, intracohort theory, and media exposure. This paper includes three separate hypotheses to explore the possible connections between efforts to restrict gay rights at the ballot box and the ever-increasing support for same-sex marriage in public opinion polls. The results provide some preliminary indication that there are plausible connections between individual statewide efforts to restrict gay rights and increases in national public opinion support for same-sex marriage. The first analysis examines electoral events concerning gay rights in states where these issues have faced voters most frequently; California, Maine, and Oregon. The first hypotheses posits a potential connection between exposure to gay rights at the ballot box and greater support for gay rights in subsequent elections concerning gay rights in the same state. No clear or consistent pattern of support emerges for successive electoral measures concerning gay rights where voters have been previously exposed to gay rights question in an electoral context. The second analysis explores national public opinion support for same-sex marriage as statewide ballot measures increase in popularity across the United States. The second hypotheses posits a connection between an increase in statewide electoral events concerning questions of same-sex marriage and an increase in national public opinion support for same-sex marriage with state-to-nation diffusion occurring and prodding upward national public opinion support for same-sex marriage simultaneously. The hypotheses is confirmed by data that suggests as election events on same-sex marriage increase across the United States at the state level, so too increases national public opinion support for same-sex marriage. The third analysis explores the rate of change in support for legal same-sex marriage across the three states where gay rights referenda and ballot initiatives have been most frequent; it posits that in states where voters have greater familiarity with gay rights at the ballot because of previous exposure to them, their support will be greater over time than public opinion measured in other states that have similar political cultures but have not faced the same level of electoral activity on gay rights. The final hypothesis is inconclusive because of the fluid nature of the same-sex marriage debate in the universe of states within the United States. States are handling this salient issue in a number of ways; some legislatures now seem to be taking steps to legalize same-sex marriage statutorily; others may take no action to propel the provision of same-sex marriage equality or end constitutional bans on the practice; while another group of states are leaving activists to litigate the policy in Federal courts or shift the debate toward statewide popular votes on the issue of authorizing same-sex marriage at the ballot box via ballot initiative or referendum.

The objective of this thesis is to create a broad perspective of Martin Luther King, Jr. and his times by placing him and his goal of creating the "beloved community" to the test of his environment: the feeling and behavior of those people whose hearts and habits he struggled to change or direct. In order to achieve this, this multi-media script, based in history, places King in contrasting settings. Act I finds King in Montgomery where with a great deal of support he wins over vocal southern segregationists in court. In contrast, Act II takes place in the Lawndale slums of Chicago where King finds sparse support and an elusive northern power structure. Each scene can be described in terms of stresses Martin Luther King, Jr. or those whose lives he touched face. Since this work is a thesis and not solely a play, extensive references are provided so that the reader may distinguish the historical basis of' the thesis from the author's use of dramatic license. For easy and necessary reference a page of footnotes follows each page of script.

State level bias crime legislation was passed throughout much of the United States over the last three decades. Beyond their prosecutorial or instrumental application, bias or hate crime laws serve an expressive or messaging function. This function is meant to promote societal cohesion through the rejection of hateful ideologies, as well as signal to attacked or marginalized members of communities that the government is directly addressing the effects of bias crime. As the number of reported hate crimes in the United States remains essentially level, it is of importance to assess how well the expressive function is performing. Following a background on the development, debate, and variation of bias or hate crime law, this project focuses on a content analysis of prominent state level media with the expectation that the expressive success of laws can be detected in bias crime coverage. It is found that bias crime related stories were featured with greater regularity in the states of Washington and Minnesota, which have passed extensive bias crime legislation. Bias crime related stories were far less prominent in South Carolina, which has no bias crime laws. The State of Wyoming, another state with no bias crime laws, displayed a surprisingly large amount of coverage, primarily as a result of the high-profile murder of Matthew Shepard in 1998.

The purpose of the study was to determine how the Fourth Amendment is treated in the age of the internet. To determine the degree of the significance of this relationship a comparative approach is used. Court opinions from cases involving other technological innovations and the Fourth Amendment were examined and their reasoning was compared to that of cases involving the internet and the Fourth Amendment. The results indicated that contrary to some fears that the internet would require a different approach with respect to the law it actually did not present many novel barriers to its application. The principle conclusion was that the reasoning used in cases involving older technologies, namely the test outlined in Katz v. United States, was consistently applied even in the age of the internet.

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This dissertation is an institutional history of the Mississippi State Hospital. Specifically, it is a study of the use of the hospital as an institutional instrument to establish, maintain, reinforce state-sponsored racial segregation and white supremacy during the period of Jim Crow in Mississippi. Mississippi's institution for its mentally ill residents became an instrument to reinforce the state's racially, socially, and economically rigid society.