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thank you for your understanding. and reintroduce tonight speakers with a professor of history at johns hopkins university co. president of future historians. and from the society of legal history and national humanities center. and then with the library museum and then national portrait gallery can american in history and also has been published among many others.

and with the african-american in public culture and the multi- award-winning with a history of race and for "the new york times" magazine in 2021 of the pulitzer in the book publisher they named vanguard and then as the letter to describe vanguard as the history of black women of the geopolitical power where they could another award-winning author of african-american women that the commanding history of african-american women for political power will be better

to grasp of that quality vanguard. without further ado. >> thank you for the introduction and i am so honored to be here tonight with martha jones who i admire so much as a scholar and as a black woman and has been so supportive of my work over the last year. this book is dogeared right now and thank you for inviting me and happy publication day. >> so let's get started with a simple question why did you decide to write this book and why do you title of vanguard? >>. >> the idea for this book came on the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment and

central park words celebrate elizabeth cady stanton and susan b anthony and that we are in danger entering into the anniversary year quite literally. and then try to pull together a black historians and to offer up one volume that would commit all of us to appreciate the role black women have played in political culture. >> studying as the notion of a black women first and that is

true but to reflect on whatever is finding i realized first it was a core principle we arrived at 200 years ago and to carry forward and this is the idea that politics has no place for racism and sexism. is how long black woman had been champion the of you and how long they had been alone they carry that forward i know to be the intellectual and political vanguard to show the very best ideals. >> initiative said this at my welcome to everyone in joining

us tonight and please feel free to your questions and the q&a box. said open the book with a story about your ancestor woman born into slavery 18 oh eight in danville kentucky and then to have a personal memoir tell us about your great great great grandmother and studying the book of a personal story fighting for the quality. >> thank you to the bookstore. i work in the office i am sitting at home now and on the wall are portraits of my foremothers including my great great great grandmother and

when i work very where i am accountable to them with everything that i do and i became self-conscious i was writing this book about women suffrage so all my interest in them i never had a chance to ask them where they were in 1920 her daughter and granddaughter and great-granddaughter are all of my in 1920 in places like kentucky and north carolina and missouri and i didn't know what they were doing but then handheld have to dig for those stories and that perspective

on voting rights. >> so are you saying that you didn't know their involvement beginning to research of this book? >>. >> it was amazing because i could not learn. i clarify my own grandmother in the 19 twenties and in north carolina where she learned later in the record just wasn't there and then to hit the archives and answer the questions that we could recover in the 19 twenties.

and then i got lucky and there was an interview in 1978 she and my grandfather were at a black women school in north carolina so they were fabled in civil rights history over the course of the interview she doesn't talk about 1920 at all but the 19 fifties and sixties and the story is about young women who knock on doors registered voters to that dangerous work to get black americans on the role in the fifties and sixties and that was the story so goes all the

way through 1965 which is where it should arrive at with the voting rights act that black southerners get the votes. >> so we will come back to that so the fact you want to talk about 1955 or the sixties space to the reason the book exist in many ways we will come back. so what would you include the memoir at the beginning of your book? and why was this a good tool to use? >> a long time ago i was trained by those in the field of critical race theory and

with that scholarship and with the and i and in the casebooks and give me a sense of and nasa of the 1690 and then to give us the vantage point. and it has been about my family and my wonderful advisor so maybe i didn't

quite have the distance to read about my family so it is taken me to come back around and is admiring and loving and as compassionate as i am to the women who have come before me and also know how to teach bigger lessons. and then as a way but it was a departure for me. but it was important. >> as a trained journalist and also to read about myself and my family.

and as i have moved on in my career it speaks to the fact when you are a black woman writing about this history and to write about american in history. those politics of writing. and then to be a black woman and movements and organizing the it is critical and then the men of our own race and it was so instructive and with the fight black male suffrage

and then you catalog how they were sidelined and then marginalized with the anti- slavery movement and then passage that was reporting back on the women's suffrage and reporting rights convention. and you told her as writing the convention with the rise of color and then to introduce this question. so black women should not be seeking to aspire to stay in a black woman's place. in fact you write about how white women at the time and

when black women like sojourner truth said i am women's right. and then to find themselves and sexism and and into the same corner and you talk about the suffragist monument. and and out of that. the lessons from history. in a black woman had to engage in. and then to do with political power. >> and then reminds us of the

way with the bodily presence black women in a political gathering. and in the public square. but then to hear the words. so there is this disjuncture nearly and specifically about racism and then to recognize who was a woman and what does it mean to be a woman? and then to be framed around woman's rights.

and then for some listeners who don't hear what i hear to say yes we should be able to claim our political power we are here to exercise of political rights that we have come to do that in the interest of all humanity. and is to have extraordinary ambition with those internationalist moments, but also when it comes to speak about themselves and parochial words and the inward looking way.

of those of political leaders and assume they know that message. >> it is like reading those internal arguments. and i think about how often even today that women movement really struggled to incorporate the fact people can be black and a woman. and it seems to say we will be one or the other. and we know it is the inability for what the real the women's march and they

could not resolve the attention of women of color to say we have to deal with more than this based on our gender affects. that a lot of white women were holding during the women's march. and those other groups of women that somehow because they were in the office. so you talk about how black women generationally have been expected to have the critical parts of our identity and oppression to focus on our race or gender. clearly we need to focus on

books. >>. >> always comes to mind. >> and the reading that black women stepped to the podium and has to be dispelled. and then the iconic women in the history of women's suffrage after the civil war and abolitionist are coming back to gather to chart out

with the abolition and citizenship. and to refuse to be to the face-off between white women as embodied the elizabeth cady stanton and his white women suffrage. so what about the black women? so alan francis. so what are we doing? and eloquent to be all bound

up together with the elizabeth cady stanton view and as a black woman of racism and sexism. will be lifted up and be empowered politically and then to verify white women or black men. and if it does violence to black women in because wants to speak about violence or sexual violence or speak about

the pride of african-american women in the country and in the face of freedom and in the struggle around citizenship so to leave a legacy that black women would pick up the black women speak of wrongs that regulation. so i appreciate you writing about the queries where barack obama so i went and interviewed a lot of black women and when hillary clinton

was running to is barack obama. so then how painful it is to make that choice and what qualified but then to choose their race or whether gender but then they felt they had to indicate by supporting hillary clinton and i heard that again and again. so it seems that struggle, how can that be resolved in this country based on the foundation upon which it was built? [laughter] >> i will tell you what i think about elizabeth warren with black women's political discourse in the wake of 2008 and taking them out at the podium and how we choose to be

here on her own political trajectory has been. we watch senator harris to that a few weeks ago at the convention. and to help democrats understand how she comes to the their and the american political history about black women's politics so there is that putin women still carry and to help them made black women's bodies intelligently when they are at the party him but at the same time and folks have branded me but i will

tell you what i think but i'm ready to dispense the most interesting thing about kamala harris to be nominated on a major party but i think that is much more interesting women has emerged as a force and to be on the long short list and meet to be more him to step into that moment and then there was a party it turned out there were at least six that i can name that could have been on the short list 120 black women running for congress and then and politics

people ask me how should we go forward and then to tune in to understand how black women have made politics of those voters of consequence of state and local legislatures to do business in this country so i hope this is the year that is necessary and i tried to write a book to appreciate the

history of how i got here of the real consequence and what do i do with it? i'm surprised to say i'm any investments in the outcome. as all americans do they will not go home in november even if they go the wrong way the history has shown up here in the dire moments of history. and then they show up in the country and 2020. and with the outcome of the election is in november that's here to stay in american politics. >> and i'm not an optimistic person, but.

>> and you are not saying and you are talking about what black women are organizing and have accomplished and those that made it impossible for joe biden not to take a black woman as vice president. for black women with those rural constituencies and actually of those democratic principles for those in the

common good and for all of the things and those that were forgotten about. and those that say not at this time. and to keep showing up for you. and michelle think about it more that way because the first came out of the organizing and to make sure this could happen. one of the things i was not as aware of the relationship between the antislavery movement and the women's rights movement so can you talk briefly about that quick. >>. >> on the one hand there is a prominent story with the

political awakening of american women in their engagement with anti- slavery. and by the 18 thirties. >> what was it about that? >> partly v.a. delivered strategy publishes movement demands slavery for me and the iteration far moral persuasion those performing hearts and minds and then to be considered the morality of american culture and family and way too thinking it through.

so women are very much the target of abolitionist organizing. so the way we have women's registry the first time name to be called controversial to pick up the pen and the thinking involves and why would he began to see themselves and with their own oppression as mirrors of enslaved people. 's arm will say slavery of sex.

it's important to say that historian a black women is very unusual to find a black woman with the same. in the same scenes. slavery is too much of the experience has black women and the north event free women and then to borrow slavery as a metaphor to discourage sexism in their own life. so in vanguard it comes much earlier before anti- slavery and it begins and literary association. and with black women's intervention and the civil rights work in the three states in the north with the radical anti- slavery and the

critical intellectual foundation as we get the podium. they already had in hand by the time they get to anti- slavery it is the critique that says no racism or sexism in american politics and that is the principle to which they will work and it is not anti- slavery society easily with white women's ideas of what a political future might look like.

and working by way of places why educated women and a strata of them black women and those that are free and educated themselves. so the origins really are in anti- slavery work. but we come there with a critique in hand. >> we will open up questions. so if you have any questions please feel free to enter into the q&a box. so this is the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment that gave women the constitutional right to vote but indicating with a huge * you said you are not celebrating the 19th amendment this year and i

would love you to talk to us about what did and did not do for women at large and why this is not a moment of celebration for you. >> i declined one reason and then 19th amendment the take on the problem the ways that antiblack racism with the underlying logic that permits the 19th amendment to be ratified. the campaign for the 19th amendment would have to and important agree with the exclusion the marginalization

because the movement of leadership the only way to succeed is by winning the support of white southern women and their husbands who on the amendment then to jettison and the black suffragist. but it's not enough to point to the dynamics of the suffrage movement. and the way that antiblack racism in fact nothing in the 1h amendment with the capacity of individual states to have jim crow laws c test to keep black women from the poll polls, that is a pillar of the h amendment was 36 states so

and it is openly understood tennessee will not include black women at the polls and general regard disregard black women and men and disenfranchised them. the 19th amendment is a landmark and it does have meaning with a long history of voting rights in the united states are black women were some seven jurisdiction after 19 twenties i don't want to leave the impression there was nothing remarkable about the moment. there certainly is but at the same time, i think that sitting in 21 - - 2021 in a historical moment where we

grapple with how did we get here so that in white supremacy can be too much of politics and culture is not the only answer but one answer lies in the g 20 that does not take on jim crow of women's votes and to create a new campaign for voting rights and will take five years through 1965. that is not the raw material ever celebration of me and with those black women who wage that fight after 1920 it's just not a moment that i can celebrate.

>> i think one of the things i say all the time that people are so inconvenienced with the narrative about the progress but to have that we have to raise the story of black americans and also those that have been consistently willing to compromise the writer black americans to meet their own agenda. i will ask you one more question before we go to q&a but i can have a conversation without talking about black women journalist in the book which was some of my favorite parts of vanguard and the be

in my grandmother i believe also talk about the rules of these women and in particular they played in the struggle along with that they face. >> sure. there's nothing easy or straightforward about being a black woman journalist but to be and added to owning and running a newspaper she's is that enterprise to disguise her identity with the initials and it is led by a woman and that is an ongoing challenge and at the same time it is hard to say too much about the

way in which newspapers in particular the bring americans to gather across space and time no i don't have to tell you that they believe that and it is dynamic and when black women are at the helm and with the coverage that they shape and they are deciding what is in and what is out and if they are deeply interested in the suffrage but as a journalist in the two think very hard

what it means to transform the relationship to black politics to antislavery politics and more. i knew for spend too much time on i wells she will take over the book and you know why. because she is an advocate and i don't know what is sharp or her pen or her time but the combination is remarkable but also know that means she wins admirers and detractors because it it is provocative

with those very pleasant ideas of the subordination of black women. so what i will say on this is that these women with the printing press. their own records for us it could not be a history for me with the heavy-handed historians interpretation it is to be a history that insisted and then to be analyzed and thought through for the record.

so wells that are among those women and a record of who they thought they were. so it is an honor to come back to that material and then help to distill that. and to dispel the love that's what i was told 25 years ago. but there wasn't enough there. and those that are shut out of other avenues of expressing themselves and organizing and

single-handedly with the global issue. and with those of social media. and then there was so much power and then not to be literate and don't have as much of a written record because newspapers began and then began to create that written record so i really appreciate that part of your book and to further explore these women and read the biographies i will go to q&a.

and then i didn't realize that you were with critical race theory so i will start with my own opening to that so can you define critical race theory for us? because they had discovered this from just a few moments ago clearly has no idea what critical race theory is and what about that diversity and specifically thinking about critical race theory.

>> i think that is able to recall question. and those who know nothing about american in history. and what is the legal scholar in the 1980s? and with the civil rights era and also to recognize words civil-rights tonight accomplish. these are folks who observe in the purging of race and racism to discrimination and then to persist in the united states so then that begins, how is it

inequality persist despite having work toward a ideal toward the united states. it is to understand better language with the language of race and racism and for workers and judges in the united states. and then to restore legal thinking and with that legal writing and then to ask about

the biographies and the motivation in the principal actors and a school of thought it is a moment of which legal scholars of color began to critique in the classroom and the casebook and the autobiography. and then workers will now. it is artful and powerful and of power those ideas of that thinking of property for example in the 20th century.

so that's where it begins it is a companion to the sociologist so a lasting effect with that sociological work to reframe race as a social construction and the way it was the law and race and racism is constructed with other rounds of american society so there is no question and critical race theory why does it persist? isn't that the question we've all been asking? i think that is novel or provocative at all but even if we don't know the answer

critical race theories are asking that question going back almost 20 years. and some among us are more pessimistic than others permanent and intractable and by studying how we get here perhaps it is the keys to into our problem. >> where do you stand? >> that's a good question. i think on many days as far as my i can see, racism to keep that baby will require vigilance extraordinary effort and the formula and the analysis of any guys of the

ratification of racism and to recognize it even if there are always folks who are prepared to exploit that american life and politics. they think racism will be a permanent feature i hope for your daughter and young people keep it at bay. >> and violence against black women as far as an intervention. it was sexual violence and extreme with that kind of violence or both?

but the thread that runs through vanguard including sexual violence. one of the things i expected to discover in the 18 fifties forward all the way into the modern civil rights era activists of their fears and experiences with sexual violence. know where more acute that francis harper talks about what it is like to be a black woman lecture you know i wells

story at this point but nearly every woman that i write about has a story being accosted and denigrated and assaulted and then to put that on the table because it goes to the core of how black women understand their particular vulnerabilities and to keep them out of ladies cars because women have the witnesses to this denigration and that they do nothing and all of the stories that i collect of which a black woman reports even speaking up for her when she is being accosted on a streetcar otherwise it is

a spectacle and to cheer on conductors. it is a core concern that the movement we referred to as me to with the vicious thread so where are the politics from the threat of sexual violence. >> it's how white men are defined from blackness and part of that is the need to find themselves opposite of black woman heard.

i don't know if there is anything else to pick up this book but anything else you would like to add tonight? >> now i think i just want to say thank you very much for being here with me and the conversation taking us through the history and think hard what it means it is on the horizon that this is a season to engage the ground game as arduous as it will be in november and thank you to

harvard bookstore for hosting us tonight. thank you for coming tonight. >> thank you so much this is a wonderful conversation and all those two that submitted questions we cannot get them all. and on behalf of harvard bookstore have a good night. be well.

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