"Race, Theft, and Ethics shows how African American literature deals with the racialized history of unequal economic opportunity in highly complex and nuanced ways, and illustrates that, for many authors, an essential aspect of their work involved contemplating the tensions between a given code of ethics and a moral course of action. A deft combination of history, literature, law, and economics, King's groundbreaking work highlights the pervasiveness of the property/race/ethics dynamic in the interfaces of African American lives with American law."--BOOK JACKET.