Professor Inniss' Book Reviewed in The Journal of Southern History
The Princeton Fugitive Slave: The Trials of James Collins Johnson
The journal, one of the foremost peer-reviewed scholarly journals of southern history, is edited and published at Rice University by the Southern History Association.
In her review, Dr. Green notes how the book’s “thorough discussion provides insights into the campus community's embrace of a narrative that obscured the reality of Johnson's entering slavery by another name,” and concludes that "mastery of a sparse archive to construct a nuanced engaging biography of Johnson serves as a model for the field and institutions engaged in similar projects."
Other News about Dr. Inniss' Book:
On July 7, 2020 Lolita Buckner Inniss presented a talk on her book The Princeton Fugitive Slave: The Trials of James Collins Johnson to the Princeton Area Alumni Association of New York City. The talk, conducted via Zoom, was attended by New York-area graduate and undergraduate alumni of Princeton. On July 16, 2020 she also presented a talk about her book to a nationwide group of Princeton Alumni and guests. Her talk was introduced by Dr. Martha Sandweiss, director of the Princeton and Slavery Project.
The Center for Compassionate Leadership has named Lolita Buckner Inniss’ The Princeton Fugitive Slave: The Trials of James Collins Johnson as one of five books white leaders should read on systemic racism along, with Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me, Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow and others.Read more.
Lolita Buckner Inniss was invited to speak at the 2021 Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting Conference on American History in Chicago, IL, April 15—April 18, 2021. The title of her talk is “Judicial Nullification of the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act: The Case of James Collins Johnson”.
Lolita Buckner Inniss’ book, The Princeton Fugitive Slave: The Trials of James Collins Johnson was nominated for inclusion on the Association of University Presses 2020 Equity, Justice, and Inclusion Community Read list. Read more.
On February 27 Lolita Buckner Inniss spoke at the University of Kansas School of Law (Lawrence, KS) on “The Trial of James Collins Johnson”. Her talk was based on her book, The Princeton Fugitive Slave: The Trials of James Collins Johnson (Fordham University Press, 2019).
A new scholarly review of The Princeton Fugitive Slave: The Trials of James Collins Johnson (Fordham University Press, 2019) has been published on the Humanities and Social Sciences Network (H-NET) online site. H-Net is an international interdisciplinary organization of scholars and teachers. From the review:
The penultimate chapter focuses on the trial of James Collins Johnson and allows Inniss to demonstrate her expertise at the academic intersection of law and race.... Critically, Inniss situates Johnson’s trial in the aftermath of the 1842 ruling in Prigg v. Pennsylvania and as a part of a number of cases that confronted the “moral-formalist dilemma,” or as Inniss explains, “the conflict between the personal sentiments of judges and other legal actors and the need to adhere to existing legal norms”. ...Collectively, Inniss’s work provides an exciting model for future scholars of slavery and labor. Perhaps most importantly, Inniss skillfully and compassionately restores Johnson’s voice to his own historical narrative. Read more.