Reprinted from Volume 118 of the Harvard Law Review, With Permission

Only One Place of Redress: African Americans, Labor Regulations, and the Courts from Reconstruction to the New Deal. By David E. Bernstein. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. 2001. Pp. xiii, 191. $39.95 (cloth).

The Lochner era, during which the Supreme Court and various lower courts struck down certain government regulations because they violated an "implicit constitutional right to 'liberty of contract'" (p. 2) has long been condemned as a low point in America's legal history. David Bernstein offers a refreshing perspective on this heavily criticized period. He maintains that, although "Lochnerism" (p. 2 n.*) had its flaws, courts committed to freedom of contract helped protect African-Americans from powerful white interest groups. His thought-provoking thesis emerges from an examination of various state regulations adopted between the 1870s and 1920s--such as occupational licensing laws--and federal legislation passed in the 1920s and 1930s--ranging from the Railway Labor Act to minimum wage laws. He argues that, although these statutes were facially neutral, the legislators who passed them often harbored discriminatory intent, and even when racism was not a motive, the laws usually had discriminatory effects. Thus when such legislation was held unconstitutional during the Lochner era, African-Americans benefited, but when the Court renounced its freedom of contract stance in the late 1930s, African-Americans were left out in the cold. Professor Bernstein's highly original analysis will no doubt spark debate among Lochner scholars, breathing new life into a previously tired discussion.