Blacks, Jews, and Civil Rights Law in New York, 1895–1913

EVAN FRISS

THE CURRENT HISTORICAL discourse concerning blacks and Jews focuses largely on the fluctuating inter-group relationships and perceptions of the two communities in the post-World War II period. Specifically, the fight for civil rights has garnered the most attention among scholars, who have detailed the roles that blacks and Jews played in the 1950s–1960s civil rights movement. Nevertheless, exceptional scholarly work regarding earlier civil rights battles remains conspicuously absent from historical literature, despite the fact that blacks and Jews, often finding themselves at the mercy of prejudiced proprietors, waged civil rights campaigns in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.