Albert M. Rosenblatt | The Eight: The Lemmon Slave Case and the Fight for Freedom

A talk with Albert M. Rosenblatt on his book "The Eight: The Lemmon Slave Case and the Fight for Freedom." The book tells the story of eight enslaved Virginians whose 1852 arrival in New York, a free state, led to a lawsuit for their freedom. The author details how the Lemmon v. New York case played a significant role in the legal and political tensions around slavery between free and slave states, which set the stage for the Dred Scott decision and, ultimately, the Civil War. Rosenblatt teaches at the New York University School of Law and is a retired judge of the New York State Court of Appeals.