History Forum: Martha S. Jones on Black women's work to achieve voting rights for all
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During Women's History month, a new lecture from the Minnesota Historical Society's 2021 History Forum series.
Historian Martha Jones of Johns Hopkins University explores the story of voting rights in America and is the author of a new book titled, "Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All."
Sharing the complex history of the struggle for voting rights is important during this critical moment in our history, Jones said. She recounts the efforts of Ida B. Wells, Mary McLeod Bethune, Diane Nash, Fannie Lou Hamer and Constance Baker Motley.
Forty five years of organizing and activism of Black women from the time of the passage of the 19th Amendment to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 showed that “working in the trenches … does pay off.”
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This voting rights activism had to overcome racism, sexism, literacy tests, poll taxes, intimidation and violence.
Looking back, “remembering that era of voter suppression can help us to see more clearly how ballots are being withheld from Americans in our own time,” Jones said. “And it might even encourage us to recommit to the ongoing work of ensuring voting rights for all Americans.”
“The promise of voting rights for all, still — I think — remains on the horizon in this country.”
Jones spoke Feb. 23 remotely at the Minnesota Historical Society’s History Forum. Jones is the Society of Black Alumni Presidential professor and SNF Agora Institute professor of History at Johns Hopkins University.