Lifestyle, News
Swampscott author studies legal history of segregation in the U.S.
SWAMPSCOTT — Jack Beermann’s newest book is 10 years in the making.
“The Journey to Separate But Equal: Madame Decuir’s Quest for Racial Justice in the Reconstruction Era,” published last month, studies the history of a relatively-unknown Supreme Court case that stopped the state of Louisiana from prohibiting racial segregation in the 1870s. Beermann first learned of the case from a footnote in a 2010 law review article, and was shocked that he had never heard of it before.