Their Accomplices Wore Robes: How the Supreme Court Chained Black America to the Bottom of a Racial Caste System

A magisterial new history of the role of the Supreme Court as an ally in implementing and preserving a racial caste system in America

Their Accomplices Wore Robes takes readers from the Civil War era to the present and describes how the Supreme Court--even more than the presidency or Congress--aligned with the enemies of Black progress to undermine the promise of the Constitution’s Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments.

The Reconstruction Amendments--which sought to abolish slavery, establish equal protection under the law, and protect voting rights--converted the Constitution into a potent anti-caste document. But in the years since, the Supreme Court has refused to allow the amendments to fulfill that promise. Time and again, when petitioned to make the nation’s founding conceit--that all men are created equal--real for Black Americans, the nine black robes have chosen white supremacy over racial fairness.

Their Accomplices Wore Robes brings to life dozens of cases and their rich casts of characters--petitioners, attorneys, justices--to explain how America arrived at this point and how society might arrive somewhere better, even as today’s federal courts lurch rightward. In this groundbreaking grand history, Brando Simeo Starkey reveals a troubling and dark aspect of American history.

BRANDO SIMEO STARKEY is a full-time writer and scholar who concentrates on race, law, and American history. A member of the NY Bar, he taught law at Villanova Law School and the Thomas Jefferson School of Law and wrote for several years for ESPN’s The Undefeated, a website that mines the intersections of race, sports, and culture. Born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, he graduated from The Ohio State University and Harvard Law School. He lives in Southern California with his wife and son.