This is a word, a podcast from Slate, I'm your host, Jason Johnson.

For decades after the end of slavery, black Americans lived under the constant threat

of racist violence, not just from police, but from all white citizens, for real or perceived

challenges to Jim Crow.

Now a new book shares the stories of some of those victims.

African Americans resisted Jim Crow, and sometimes their resistance was, they didn't say yes,

sir.

They just said yes, and for that you could die.

The author of by hands now known, Jim Crow's legal executioners coming up on a word.

With me, Jason Johnson, stay with us.

Welcome to a word, a podcast about race and politics and everything else, I'm your host,

Jason Johnson.

Many Americans would mark the murder of George Floyd as the turning point in how we as a nation

view and discuss police violence targeting black folks.

But for decades, murders by police or by white people who took it upon themselves to

enforce white supremacy went largely unreported by the press and uninvestigated by authorities.

Now many of those stories are being widely told for the first time in a new book by hands

now known Jim Crow's legal executioners.

The author is Margaret Burnham.

She's a distinguished professor of law at Northeastern University and the founding director

of its civil rights and restorative justice project.

It was also appointed by President Biden to serve on the civil rights cold case review

...