He applied the “Page 99 Test” to his new book, Seeking Justice: The Extraordinary Freedom Suits of an Enslaved Virginia Family, and shared the following:
Page 99 of Seeking Justice contains a description of the transfer from one county court to another of a law suit in antebellum Virginia by which an enslaved family sought to win its freedom from slavery.Learn more about Seeking Justice at the University of Virginia Press website.
Page 99 does capture one element of the book. Seeking Justice recounts the torturous path by which this freedom suit moved through Virginia’s legal system, and the five changes of venue it experienced along the way certainly help to explain why it stands as the longest-running such suit in Virigina history. But page 99 does not capture the central element of the book. Seeking Justice explores the active role that the enslaved plaintiffs in this case played in advancing their cause. The move described on page 99, however, was initiated by the presiding judge, not by the plaintiffs. The enslaved men and women central to the story appear on page 99 as passive objects rather than the active participants they really were.
The Page 99 Test is an interesting approach to deciding whether or not to read a particular book. In this case, it might work for those seeking a portrait of the legal system in antebellum Virginia. It does not work, however, for those seeking to understand the different ways in which enslaved African Americans actively challenged the social and legal systems holding them in bondage.
--Marshal Zeringue
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