Our Minds Were Always Free

An exploration of how African American innovators and artists—whose impact and financial value in American music, movies, and TV is disproportionately greater than their numbers—have fought for and often won the rights to own and benefit from their own work. When we think about the things that have barred success for African Americans, intellectual property law is hardly the first thing that comes to mind, if we even think of it all. We certainly don’t think of it as the launching pad for building generational wealth in the Black community, so it follows that we don’t see our favorite pop stars as revolutionary race warriors. African American artists have finally, belatedly, come to be the owners of their art and beneficiaries of the money their art makes, after centuries of producing life-changing art. There were hundreds and thousands of Bessie Smiths before we ever got Beyoncé or Kendrick Lamar. Lisa E. Davis, one of the foremost African American entertainment attorneys in the country, traces the epic journey Black Americans have been on, from being claimed as property to claiming the benefits of intellectual property. As she notes, “Under slavery, our minds were always free, but there was no profit from what our minds created.” Beginning in the 18th century with the drafting of the Constitution and ending in the 21st century with a warning about the role technology will play in creative industries, Our Minds Were Always Free tells the story of the indelible legacy of Black American genius and the struggle to receive the credit and the profit that they deserved.

Lisa E. Davis is one of the foremost entertainment attorneys in the country. She is cochair of the Entertainment Group of Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz, representing celebrities in the film, television, publishing, music, theater, and sports industries. Davis has been ranked as a New York area "Super Lawyer" since 2007 and featured on the cover of Super Lawyers magazine about her career and advocacy for racial justice. She is recognized in Who’s Who Legal 2024, by Best Lawyers in America 2023–2025, Crain’s New York Business’s 2023 Notable Women in Law, The Hollywood Reporter’s Power Lawyers 2025, 2024, 2023, 2021, and 2020 lists of New York’s Top 20 Entertainment Attorneys, Variety’s Legal Impact Report, and more. Davis has been quoted in Elle magazine, The New York Times, and Black Enterprise magazine. A graduate of Harvard College and New York University School of Law, she clerked for the Honorable Constance Baker Motley in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. A frequent speaker and panelist at conferences, she is a member of the New York City Bar and the Black Entertainment and Sports Lawyers Association. Davis also has a political blog, Journal of the Plague Years. She practices law in New York and lives in New Jersey with her family.