The Great Dissenter: The Story of John Marshall Harlan, America's Judicial Hero
Peter S. Canellos
Simon & Schuster
The most famous dissenter on the Supreme Court, John Marshall Harlan’s words helped end segregation and gave us our civil rights and our modern economic freedom almost a century after his death. But his legacy would not have been possible without the courage of Robert Harlan, a enslaved man who John’s father raised like a son in the same household. After the Civil War, with Black people holding power in the Republican Party, it is Robert who helps John land his appointment to the Supreme Court. Harlan’s dissents, particularly in Plessy v. Ferguson, were widely read and a source of hope for decades. Harlan’s words built the foundations for the legal revolutions of the New Deal and Civil Rights eras.