Susie Guillory Phipps v. the State of Louisiana: A story of struggle for racial identity in the United States of America in the 1970s and 1980s

Abstract

From the court case brought forward by Susie Guillory Phipps against the State of Louisiana (1977-1982) we offer an introductory analysis to the (re)construction of the notions of racism, race and racial ideology in the historical development of the United States
of America. Considering that race is not a fixed entity but a conglomerate of meanings that appears as the fundamental organizing principle of social relations, and given the judicial and legal system’s centrality to the rationalization and institutionalization of racism, race and racial ideology, we will use the Phipps case as model example. We will explore how the aforementioned notions were revised at a specific historical moment (70s and 80s) in pursuit of their survival, and we will examine their functionality in the context of the transformation of racial relations that occurred with the legal demise of the system that until the 1960s sustained the US racial hierarchy known as Jim Crow.