Centering Families of Color

A Reimagination of Family Law

R. A. Lenhardt, Nancy E. Dowd

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Year: 2026
• Print ISBN:
  9781479842025
• eBook ISBN:
  9781479833337
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Family Law
• Index: Law

Centers families of color in family law, revealing their pivotal role in shaping justice, equality, and social change and how their perspectives reframe the scope of family law

Centering Families of Color argues for the reframing of how we define "family law." Centering the voices and perspectives of families of color, it expands and contextualizes how the law functions in relation to families. It exposes the impact of structural inequalities as they differentially and hierarchically impact families. This groundbreaking volume thus reorients how we think of family law, offering the experiences of families of color as critical to both the diagnoses and solutions for structural inequality.

While conventional treatment of families of color marginalizes their role socially and politically as add-ons, this volume centers them as essential. Leading scholars across disciplinary groups unearth and expose the hidden norms of family law, identify the critical history of how the law impacts families of color, and detail their dynamic contributions to social transformation. Families of color offer affirmative, resilient strategies for social justice and reform.

At a time of diversity among families and dramatic changes in the pattern of life, this volume provides a critical examination of the legal structures that impact families from the much-needed perspective of families of color. Centering Families of Color showcases how families of color are central to understanding what family is and how families interact with the law.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction: Reframing
• 1. Family and the Meaning of Freedom
• 2. Elusive Freedom: African American Families in the Reconstruction Era
• 3. Family Pioneers: Black Feminist Leadership in Twentieth-Century Legal Transformations
• 4. “Zora on My Mind”: Placemaking and Prospering in Washington, DC
• 5. Rooted in Fertile Ground: Resilience, Resistance, and the Positive Development of Black Children
• 6. Expectant and New Black Fathers: The Paradox of Hypervisibility and Invisibility
• 7. Harnessing the Power of Caregivers from the Child’s Community
• 8. Health Justice for Children of Color
• 9. Essential Workers and Their Families
• 10. Black Families and the Gaping Absence of the US Family Support System
• 11. Prison Family Law
• 12. Breaking Women Free of the Prison Industrial Complex
• 13. Ensuring All Families Flourish
• Conclusion: So Now What? Setting the Frame
• About the Contributors
• Index