Their Accomplices Wore Robes: The Supreme Court vs. Black America

Co-presented with KALW

A magisterial new history of the role of the Supreme Court as an ally in implementing and preserving a racial caste system in America, Brando Simeo Starkey’s Their Accomplices Wore Robes takes readers from the Civil War era to the present and describes how the Supreme Court aligned with enemies of Black progress to undermine the promise of the Constitution’s Reconstruction Amendments: to abolish slavery, establish equal protection under the law, and protect voting rights. Time and again, when petitioned to make the nation’s founding conceit—that all men are created equal—real for Black Americans, the nine black robes have chosen white supremacy over racial fairness. Their Accomplices Wore Robes brings to life dozens of cases and their rich casts of characters—petitioners, attorneys, justices—to explain how America arrived at this point and how society might arrive somewhere better, even as today’s federal courts lurch rightward. In conversation with KALW’s Sunni Khalid. Donate to reserve a seat, FREE to walk-ups.

Brando Simeo Starkey is a writer and scholar. A graduate of Harvard Law School and a member of the New York Bar, he taught law at Villanova Law School and wrote for several years for ESPN’s The Undefeated (now Andscape). Born and raised in Cincinnati, he lives in Southern California with his wife and two sons. He launched a newsletter, The Braveverse, about law, politics, and freedom from caste, at the TheBraveverse.com, in January 2025.

Sunni M. Khalid is a veteran of more than 40 years in journalism, having worked in print, radio, television, and web journalism. He has worked for Time magazine, USA TODAY, The Wilmington News-Journal, The Baltimore Sun, and National Public Radio, where he was a diplomatic correspondent and the Cairo bureau chief. During his career, Sunni has reported from more than 35 countries in Africa, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the Caribbean on a number of breaking international stories. These include Operation Restore Hope in Somalia, the U.S. military intervention in Haiti, Israel’s Operation Grapes of Wrath in Lebanon and South Africa’s historic, first all-race elections in 1994. He attended Howard University in Washington D.C. and graduated cum laude, majoring in print journalism. He also studied at the Johns Hopkins University’s Nitze School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington D.C., majoring in African studies and international economics.

A New Day with KALW

A new series, in collaboration with KALW, that seeks to understand the many forces and people behind the rise of American authoritarianism and how we can arrive somewhere better.

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