The Special Committee on Race and Social Justice in the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Houston , with the Center for Public History, the Institute for Research on Women, Gender, and Sexuality, and the African American Studies program, are very pleased to announce the second event of the CLASS 2020-21 Lecture Series on Race and Social Justice , a prominent series of lectures over the 2020-21 academic year by distinguished invited speakers with expertise in the critical study of race and racism.
This event is also part of the year-long Suffrage Centennial Book Club, a joint venture of University of Houston Friends of Women’s Studies, the Houston Public Library, and the Houston League of Women Voters.
Speaking will be Professor Martha S. Jones, Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor and Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University.
For further information, contact Associate Professor Leandra Zarnow, event coordinator on behalf of the CLASS Special Committee on Race and Social Justice: lrzarnow@central.uh.edu.
In her talk, "Vanguard: When Black Women Led the Fight for Voting Rights," Dr. Jones repositions suffrage history to place African American women as key sojourners to achieve the vote, which was not assured for women of color with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. Telling a story of how women defied racism and sexism in their challenges to disenfranchisement, she shows how they were instrumental in pressuring for the 1965 Voting Rights Act and speaks to why this history matters today.
What: CLASS 2020-21 Lecture Series on Race and Social Justice
Who : Professor Martha S. Jones is a legal and cultural historian whose work examines how Black Americans have shaped the story of American democracy. Professor Jones is the Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor and Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University. Professor Jones is the author of Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All (Basic Books, 2020), and Birthright Citizens: A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America (Cambridge University Press, 2018), winner of the Organization of American Historians Liberty Legacy Award for the best book in civil rights history, the American Historical Association Littleton- Griswold Prize for the best book in American legal history, and the American Society for Legal History John Phillip Reid book award for the best book in Anglo-American legal history. Professor Jones is also author of All Bound Up Together: The Woman Question in African American Public Culture 1830-1900 (University of North Carolina Press, 2007), and co-editor of Toward an Intellectual History of Black Women (University of North Carolina Press, 2015), in addition to numerous important articles and essay.
Links:Professional Website: https://history.jhu.edu/directory/martha-jones/
Personal Website: http://marthasjones.com
Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All:
https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/martha-s-jones/vanguard/9781541618602/
Suffrage Centennial Book Club:
https://houstonlibrary.org/find-it/readers-link/suffrage-centennial-book-club
When: Wednesday, October 21, 2020 | 6-7:30 p.m. CST
Where: Online Live-Stream
Cost: Free and open to the public