American jurisprudence and law have profoundly shaped, defined, and constrained the lives of Black people for over 400 years. Racial inequality has extremely deep roots in American society, and our Constitution, statutes, court cases, and regulations not only bear witness to this, but are often the source of it.beginning with the first known case marking the legal difference between Africans and Europeans in 1640 in Virginia, and continuing with laws recently introduced in the wake of the killing of George Floyd and other Black Americans.