Dr. Pippa Holloway, Ph.D., Douglas Southall Freeman Distinguished Professor of History, University of Richmond "Reconstruction and the Long History of Equal Access to Court Testimony" The standard narrative of the equalization of court testimony as being accomplished through the Civil Rights Act of 1866 overlooks a longer, more complicated story. African Americans found ways around barriers to testimony against whites in certain instances during the slave era. White southerners – including prosecutors, crime victims, and judges – supported African American testimony in some cases when it was needed for the conviction of particularly dangerous white criminal offenders. Restrictions on testimony pitted legislatures against courts, and courts sometimes resisted restrictions on evidence when these restrictions did not serve the ends of justice. Pippa Holloway is the Douglas Southall Freeman Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Richmond. Her research and teaching focuses on legal and political culture in the 19th and 20th century US. Her most recent monograph is titled Living In Infamy: Felon Disfranchisement and the History of American Citizenship. She is also the author of Sexuality, Politics, and Social Control in Virginia, 1920-1945. This paper is part of a longer project on the history of limitations on court testimony. Areas of Expertise: Political and legal history LGBT history Southern history