to me the devil is in the details. if working to deal with injustice in the country work and had to deal with the details. good evening everyone and welcome my name is hillary

car. i'm very pleased to introduce this event with martha s jones. i am excited to share with us book called "vanguard". the harvard bookstore continues to bring authors in their work to the community. during the unprecedented times. our event also appears on our website. it will conclude with some time for your questions. click on the q&a button at the bottom of the screen. i will be posting a link to push it -- purchase this book.

thank you for showing up and tuning in and support of our authors and incredible staff. if they do it we will do our best to resolve them quickly and we thank you for your patience and understanding. i'm pleased to introduce tonight's speaker. martha s jones. as a professor of history at johns hopkins university. her work has been recognized by the american council of learning societies. she has held numerous fellowships. the university of pennsylvania law school. it has appeared in many museum expositions.

with the national portrait gallery. she has also been published in the washington post the atlantic she is the co- editor of the history of the multi- award winning citizens. they will be discussing the brand-new book published today how black women broke barriers. the new york times called professor jones a scholar and an absorbent writer. as an expansive history of black women.

a national book award winning author said the political historian of african-american women and it is the commanding history of the remarkably -- remarkable struggle. we are so happy to have them both here tonight so without further ado the digital podium is yours martha and nicole. >> ink you so much for the introduction. i'm so honored to be here tonight with dr. jones who i admire so much both as a scholar and as a black woman. and someone who has spent so supportive of my work over the last year. it is very much dogeared right now. let's just start with a pretty

simple question why did you decide to write this book and why did you title it "vanguard". >> the idea came precisely because i knew the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment was coming in a story about a book monument in central park one that would celebrate elizabeth cady stanton. this said to me that they were in danger perhaps of entering into this anniversary year. we really pulled together three generations. and to offer up the volume that would really commit all of us to fully appreciate the

role that black women had played in political culture. >> vanguard started that this was the notion that would be filled with black women first and black women breaking barriers and that's absolutely true. but as i really began to reflect on what i was fighting. they have really arrived at 200 years ago at the beginning of the 19th century and had carried forward really until our own time. this is the idea that american politics should have no place for racism and sexism. when i recognize how long they had been champion that view when i realize how long they had been alone in carrying that forward and setting the ideal in front of us.

i realize they were a political vanguard showing the country to its very best ideals. i finish that when i first started. welcome to everyone who is joining us tonight. will get to them at the end of our talk today. a woman who was born into slavery in 1808. for obviously reasons i am interested in the power of using personal memoir to tell the national stories can you tell us a bit about your great great grandmother and her descendents and how we started the book with the personal story.

i also want to say thanks to the carter bookstore. for hosting us. i work in an office. i'm sitting at home in my office now. we have portraits of our mothers including my great grandmother nancy belgrave's. when i work i am very aware that i am accountable to them in everything i do i became self-conscious in fact. i really didn't know where they sat for all the interest in them and thinking about them. i have never have a chance to ask them about where they were in 1920. her daughter and granddaughter. are all alive in 1920.

i didn't know what they were doing. but i realized before i was done with the book i was can have to dig for those stories and let them help guide me to tell what is a uniquely black women's perspective on political rights in voting rights. >> are you saying you didn't know what their involvement in this work prior to beginning the research of this book? it was amazing except it was also tough there were things i wanted to know that i cut it i was trying to find my owned grandmother and the 1920s. i tried in missouri where she lived in 1920. later in greensboro north carolina. the records just weren't

there. i thought i have struck out frankly. the one thing you think you know how to do is go through the archives and answer questions. nobody valued that. and then i got lucky. i fell upon an interview that she gave in 1978 she and my grandfather for many years had run a place called bennett college a black women's school in north carolina. greensboro where they lived was kind of the fabled in civil rights history. they haven't talked about 1920 at all. the brilliant story about

young women who began to knock on doors. to that danger is a work of getting black americans on the voter role. i think that's where it aptly should arrive at. working to come back to that. the fact that she wanted to talk about 1965. to the reason that the book exists. we will come back. when did you know you are going to improve this memoir. and why do you think.

>> a long time ago i went to law school. one of the interventions that they made into legal scholarship. was to surface the word i and to give us the latitude when we didn't find our own narrative in the casebook to introduce introduce them to our own storytelling. my training have given me a sense of why and how it can be important that we use our own stories. you have done this so beautifully in your essay to the 1619 projects. and giving us his vantage point on the history of this

country in the state. it was definitely a departure for me because my whole paper in graduate school have been about my family. my beloved advisor. taught me the word haiti or griffey. maybe i didn't have the distance to ray about write about my family. it has taken me a lot of time to come back around into have a voice that is as admiring and loving and compassionate as i am to the women who come before me but also know how to teach bigger lessons about them. it's not family for family sake as it is using them as the way into my approach to a book. readers will tell me if i am successful or not.

with a departure for me. i think it was an important one. as a journalist who has practiced tunnel is in for almost two decades. most of my career i also i was writing about myself or my family. they should be telling the stories of others. and i transitioned somewhat as i moved on in my career. i think it speaks to the fact that when you are our black woman writing about this history. these are our stories. there isn't the same kind a distance of other people have when they are writing around in american history. i want to move on. to the politics of writing. and black women's history in particular. and how we know the black woman's role in movements and resistance and organizing. is critical our work has been by that white society. but also by the mid- of our

own race. who we were fighting alongside. i think that this is one of the many cases where history is so instructive. they were being accused of this railing the flight. and they were this railing that fight. you catalog how they were sidelined at color. and people convention. how they were viewed with suspicion. and then you have this illuminating meat passage about james swift town. reporting back on that women's suffrage rights convention. you quoted her as writing the convention was not called to discuss the rights of color.

she basically said that black women should not be seeking to aspire more than two race. to the memory memo of their own class. e ray about how white women at the time. likely referred to themselves as slaves. while literally black women were enduring actual slavery. they push back against that. and they said i am woman's rights. we clearly see today that black women are still fighting off both racism and sexism and still fighting ourselves. and pinned into the same corner. you talked about the suffrage is movement. they were just quite literally written out of that. can you talk about those lessons from history that had that intersectional fight that

they have to engage in. and how that has been there. and how black women had had to deal with political power today. one of the things that the quote reminds us of is the way in which the presents. the body we present a black women in a political gathering. somehow it seems to enterprise those. there is this disjunction. that they are speaking insistently about racism. but when we read just some

words. we recognize that there are deeply invested in the question of who is a woman. what does it mean to be a woman for her. how does a woman like her get into a movement that is framed around women's rights. part of my reflection and the way in which the very presence of a black woman they don't hear what i hear in the women throughout vanguard who say yes, we are here to claim our political powers. but we come to do that in the interests of. i didn't expect. we do that in the interests of all humanity. and they say it again and again. and it becomes clear that it's not that black women don't have extraordinarily ambitious and great vision. it encompasses all americans.

and some international moments as well. but also you could hear or imagine. when you speak about themselves. in some parochial were inward looking way. that is trouble for black women that run to vanguard. and i think we can .2 examples in our own heart. of folks who can't really hear the words of black women political leaders. and assume they know the message because they read the person. >> reading some of this it is like reading some of an internal argument and discussion that are still going on today. i think about how often. even today the women movement really struggles to incorporate the fact that people can be black and in a woman. language is women and black people. it seems to say we will be

what are the other. and then puts a silent white in front of the word women. it was the inability to have two intersection holidays that derailed the women's march. they were unable to really resolve those tensions with women of color safe we have to deal with more than just discrimination based on our gender or. and i talked about this when we did the event for the 19th. what encapsulates it best in my mind is the fact that a lot of white women were holding during the women's march that here they have gotten elected. it erased the struggles of black women and other martin herbs of women. that it was just one woman and that donald trump wasn't in the office. there would not be someone protesting for people's rights. can you talk about how

generationally they had been expected to turn off critical up critical parts of our identity to either head to focus on our race or our gender when clearly we are compelled to focus on both. >> for me the moment that always comes to mind when we talk about this is the primary contest between barack obama which was positive. if it was content. as if there were no black men. and stepped through the microphone and more. it has to be dispelled.

with the iconic moment. the years after the civil war. with citizenship in the 14th amendment. that story continues to be told. as if it was a face up. with that calls for educated suffrage. and on the other hand. douglas who says what about the black women. who were in those meetings.

not only sneaks. and there were a poet. we are all bound up together. it's her way of saying i'm not can i count this as the cady stanton view about how to go here. in fact i think as a black woman i meet at that cross roads of racism and sexism. women like me should be at the center. this coalition manages to lift me up. we would all be out lifted up politically. that story is often told to vilify white women or to vilify black men. in both instances it is a story told that does of

violence to black women. they want to speak about sexual violence. in the specific right of african-american women in the country. in the face of freedom. black women will pick up and work on pick through. even until today. you also said that they speak of right which they speak of wrong. i appreciate you bringing up

the part when barack obama was facing off with hillary clinton because i was interviewed. they spoke about how painful it was to having made that choice. and making that choice both of them were qualified to have to choose their race over their gender. the fact that we haven't split ourselves. how can the struggle be resolved. in this country. built on the foundations upon which it was built. >> i wish i knew the answer to

that. i will tell you what i think. what becomes a regular part of the political discourse in the wake of 2008 is taking that moment at the podium to articulate for the uninitiated times to be here. and what your own political trajectory had been. we watched senator harris do that a few weeks ago at a convention. as a way. of helping democrats understand how she comes to be here and how she is situated in the very complex history. it knows too little about black women's politics.

there is that burden that black women still carry which is to help them read their bodies intelligently. when they're at the podium. at the same time they had branded me too optimistic. i want to tell you what i think which is that i'm ready to dispense with the black women first analysis if we can call it that which is to say i don't think the most interesting thing about it's her first black woman who has been there. i think black women have emerged as a force. black women were more than prepared to step away in that moment when there was an

election cycle. in a party. it turns out there at least six that we could name that have been on the short list. more than a hundred 20 black women running for congress. it is a record shattering number. in 2020. this is what we have seen as a force of black women in politics. people ask me how should i go forward. might be time to tune in and understand and appreciate the study of black women. today turning out in disproportionate numbers and been voters of consequence. and prepared to sit in washington not to mention

state and local legislatures. and do the business of this country. i hope it is a year that folks find that necessary by tuning into that. eased the permission of history. but the real consequence of course is what we can do with it. i will go so far as to say. with the outcome of this. i think all americans do. black women will not go home in november even if things go the wrong way. history reminds us that they have shown up even in the darkest. in the most dire moments of this history. black women show up for this country. they're doing it now and 2020. and i don't have any reason to

think that we would pull back whatever the outcome of the election is in november. i think it's a force that's here to stay in american politics. in i too optimistic do you think? >> i think what you're arguing though is that it's actually a fact. you will not saying what the outcome will be. but you are talking about what black women through our organizing had accomplished and i do think that that framing that you just talked about i'm not talking about that. black women pretty much made it impossible for joe biden not to take a black woman as president. the amount of organizing and that said it's not okay to just commit to a woman. it needs to be a black woman because they had been the most

loyal constituency for the democratic party. we come out at the highest rate. and we actually, when you think about what the democratic principles are in the principal. that black women are the ones who promote and believe and vote for the common good at the highest rates. and for all of those things that that the democratic party says it stands for. and then often used it to win elections and then forgotten about. i thing it's been amazing to see black women come into their power. and say not this time. you will pick a black woman if you expect us to keep showing up for you. i think that is a great framing. and we should think about it more that way. because they didn't come out of nowhere. and the first came because of the organizing of nameless faces. black women. who made sure that this could happen.

i wonder if you could talk. one of the things i was not aware of was the relationship between the antislavery movement and the women's rights movement. it was born of the antislavery movement. i don't know if you could just talk about that. >> on the one hand i do think there is a predominant story that situates the political awakening about their own inequalities for white american women in their engagements. and indeed by the 1830s. it is is partly a deliberate strategy. with the unequivocal end of slavery. it does work through the principle of law suasion.

you win people over by transforming our hearts and minds. it's not political question. and they are considered if you will the vectors are of morality in american culture. a way for the transformation of men thinking it through. very much the target of abolitionist rhetoric. so you have women who have history in their own families or lives. for the first time being called controversy only. but to the podium. they pick up the pen. the writing as a deliberate or. that thinking involves that white women begin see themselves in their own plate if you well.

as near in that circumstance. it is very unusual to have find a black woman in the same scenes. they pick up slavery as a metaphor. even free women are living through. i think it of for them to borrow it as a metaphor to talk about a surge of sexism in their own life. i also want to say. i think the story begins much earlier. and it begins before anti- slavery.

it begins with that literary associations. with the rates without rates and civil rights work. even before they are developing the intellectual foundation. they already had in hand by the time they get to anti- slavery organizations that as a critique. no racism or sexism in american politics. that is the principle to which they will work.

it is one that is an easily with the white ideas. about what a political future might look like. they are always working by way of a complex hierarchy. in a different strategy. and they come to that already with a critique in hand. we are going to open a question. if you have any questions please enter them into the q and a box.

obviously this is the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment. with the constitutional right to vote. that amendment came with a huge asterix you've said you are not celebrating the 19th amendment this year. i love for you to talk about that. what did it do or did not do and why it is not a moment of celebration for you. >> and i have to order the celebration. i really declined. my read was the 19th amendment. take on the problem. it runs through and is a one

one of the underlying logics that permits that 19th amendment. the campaign for the 19th amendment left to an important degree. on the exclusion of black women. the marginalization of black women within that movement. why, because it understands. it is not enough to point for injured dynamics. when you look on the floor of congress.

nothing in the 19th amendment will interfere with the capacity of the individual state to use the jim crow laws. and more to keep it from the polls. that is a pillar of the 19th amendment. to improve that my black women at the polls. now to regard black women. and disenfranchise them. >> it is not a moment to celebrate. over the long history of voting rights in the united states. there are black women even and some southern jurisdictions who do vote after 1920.

at the same time, i think sitting at 2021. as a country we are grappling with question. how on earth. if it still contaminates. one answer lies in that. they did not take on jim crow. with women's votes. they left intact. it takes 45 years until 1965

that is not the raw material of the celebration for me. even if i deeply admire the black women who waged that to fight before 1920. as on that a moment i can unequivocally celebrate. they are just so inconvenient. we want this simplistic narrative about advancing it. we have to race the story of black americans and we have to change the way that they had been willing to compromise i'm just can ask you one more question before we go up to the q&a. i cannot leave the conversation without talking

about the role that they head in the book. some of my favorite parts was that you feature several black women journalists. and of course my spiritual grandmother. a lot of people talk about the goals of black women in particular. in the role that they played. there was nothing easy or straightforward about being a black woman journalist. they had been owning have been owning and running a newspaper. you know that they give up the enterprise. disguising her identity.

they are just convinced that they will not carry it the unique paper that is led by a woman. as an ongoing challenge for black women journalists. at the same time it's hard to say too much about the way in which newspapers in particular are the crossroad. that net black americans together. with space and time. i don't have to tell you i came after my students. the newspaper is that. it is a new media. it is a crossroads. and incredibly dynamic. they shaped the debate.

and they said they carried. they will have their own political rate. she is curating that. and it's getting very hard to see what it means to transform the relationship of women within thai with antislavery politics and more. she would just take over. and you know why. and while is a social scientist. i don't know what is sharper. the combination is remarkable.

but you also know that that means the brand is it runs counter to very present ideas. even within black institutions. the last thing i want to say on this is the gift that these sorts of women with the press. they leave their own records for us. it can be a history for me of my heavy-handed historian interpretation of the past. it needed to be a history that

insisted that in fact black women were there they understood and analyzed and thought through and that they left us the record. wells and kerry are carey are among those women who leave a record of what they thought and who they were. what the stakes were. it is an honor in fact to come back to that material into try to figure it out for readers and help distill that for readers and to dispel the rub that we can't write black women's history. that's it i was told by some not all. that's just a lie.

we have to be willing to go where black women were. and go to the materials to tell the past. i think about that tremendous platform that it provided black women who are being shut out of other avenues of expressing themselves. and single-handedly put lynching on the global issue. in the power that. while we didn't have twitter or social media. newspapers were transferable. you would pass it onto someone else and they would pass it on to someone else. i think there was so much power in that in particular for a people that most of our tickets to that point have not been allowed to be illiterate. the black owned newspaper it has been the written record.

i hope it will lead people to further for these women. i will go to the q&a. can you can confine that. with them and they existed. and so far all of the people on the same tonight. if you could just divide it for us.

when you think about that. that diversity training is un-american. he was talking about the critical race theory. i was just dispensing the latter part. it has nothing about american history. the critical race theory. emerges out of a very particular moment and i'm mostly the scholars in the 1980s who are looking to take stock of the civil rights era. and looks like they are recognizing what civil rights did not accomplish. they are folks that observed despite the purging of our race and racism a process in

the united states. in the black americans. how is it the inequality process. despite having worked towards the ideas in the united states. the language of race and racism. if it has been gussied up. it looks to history to restore legal thinking. the history if you well.

and looks at the biography. and goes beyond the surface of legal writing. to ask about the politics. in the motivation of political actors. and the school of thought about what scholarship might be it is this moment in which scholars of color. begin to critique what happens in the lot classroom. it opens the door to the eye. so the storytelling. i think it's well known by many people.

it's really powerful combining of the own family. including the history of slavery and their family. how the intimate are thinking about property. there was a companion to sociologist who will give a seminar. to the sociological work that has begun. race and racism are being constructed. there is no question.

why does racism exist. i don't think it's a novel or provocative question at all. it seems to be the question on many people's going back almost 40 years. among us are more branded more pessimistic than others. by studying how we get here. i think as far as my eye can

see. to keep racism at bay will require that i don't yet see the formula. in the analysis in the promise. i do believe we have the capacity to minimize it. and to recognize it. even if there will be folks who are prepared to just get up and use it. i will be a permanent feature. we learn better how to keep it at bay.

does this come through in vanguard and how to determine the sexual violence. the thread that runs through vanguard is one about sexual violence. violence including sexual violence for black women. one of the things i have never expected to discover. from the 1850s forward all the way until the modern civil rights era. the activists come to narrate their fears and encounters. with sexual violence.

this is nowhere else more acute. francis harper talks about what it would be like to be a black woman lecture you know ida wells is a story on this point. nearly every woman i write about has a story about being denigrated. it comes to put that on the table. it really goes to the core of how black women understand their political particular vulnerabilities. when they keep them out of ladies cars. they also bring it to the table because they know into the denigration into the lives of black women.

someone even speaking at for her. when she is women in the ladies truck car watched. and they even cheer on conductors and more. this is a core concern. in the 21st century a movement that we refer to. it is an old and vicious thread in the history of black women in politics the question of where are the politics that will exclude them from the threat of the sexual violence.

and they are distance there. it is doubly true for white women. with the need to define themselves as opera set of with the need to define themselves as opera set of -- black women. we could have a whole another talk about that. those are my questions. i don't know dr. jones is there anything else besides pick up this book please. is there anything else you'd like to add before we close out tonight. i just want to say thank you to you very much for being here with me for the conversation of taking us through the history and think hard about what the history means for our present and immediate future.

the women i wrote about. what tell you this is a season to engage the ground game and american politics and do the work as arduous as it will be in november. i think that is the best way to honor them. thanks to the harvard bookstore for focusing with us tonight. thank you for your work. it is really a wonderful conversation. thanks to all of you out there who spend your evening with us. and all of the people whose questions we couldn't quite get to. you can all learn more about this particular book. and on behalf of harvard bookstores have a great night keep your reading and please everybody be well.

but tv is television for serious readers. join us again next saturday beginning at 8:00 a.m. eastern for the best nonfiction books. .. .. i want to start with news that breaking as we are taping this, and that's a potential look at section 230, the liability portion of the communications act and possible changes to it. what is your view and your groups view of section 230, and what do you think about possible