Legal systems have long represented one of the few ways poor or stigmatized people leave lasting documentation about their lives. Such records, often a bureaucratic manifestation of tremendous pain, carry unique challenges for historians. These three papers represent ongoing work by historians to tell narrative histories of important mid-twentieth century court cases. In 1947, a California jury convicted a wealthy New England woman, Elizabeth Ingalls, of enslaving Dora Jones, for three decades. In 1948, Rosa Lee Ingram, a widowed mother of twelve, faced the threat of execution in Georgia for what became known as a self-defense slaying. In 1953, Edgar Labat and Clifton Alton Poret faced the death sentence for a rape conviction in New Orleans and maintained their innocence through a letter writing campaign while incarcerated in Orleans Parish Prison and Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. Yet in all three cases, these convictions represented an uncertain middle, with endings that were far from predictable.

Each of these histories represents more than protracted courtroom drama or the creep of “true crime” as seen in some historical writing. Seizing the form of narrative history makes room for backstories and side stories that are often absent from academic histories but, when considered together, help ground pivotal moments in time and place. For Dora Jones, her employer’s history as a missionary to uplift the freed people becomes prologue to Black women’s working conditions, blackmail, and what government prosecutors named ‘involuntary servitude.’ For Rosa Lee Ingram, close attention to place and community makes it possible to recover part of Rosa Lee Ingram’s backstory rooted in the change and continuity of Southwest Georgia. For Edgar Labat and Clifton Alton Poret, who like the Ingrams represented far-from-perfect symbols, efforts to secure their freedom came from a range of unconventional activists rather than groups such as the NAACP and the Civil Rights Congress.