Week Eight: “Birth Right Citizenship,” Professor Martha S. Jones, Johns Hopkins University
This week we travel to Baltimore and Johns Hopkins University
We’re in Baltimore to hear a talk by Professor Martha S. Jones on her book Birthright Citizens: A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America. Her talk is one of the many podcasts on American history available at Ben Franklin’s World.
Professor Martha S. Jones
Professor Jones tells how African American activists radically transformed the terms of citizenship for all Americans. Before the Civil War, colonization schemes and black laws threatened to deport former slaves born in the United States. Birthright Citizens recovers the story of how African American activists remade national belonging through battles in legislatures, conventions, and courthouses. They faced formidable opposition, most notoriously from the US Supreme Court decision in Dred Scott. Still, former slaves studied law, secured allies, and conducted themselves like citizens, establishing their status through local, everyday claims. All along they argued that birth guaranteed their rights. With fresh archival sources and an ambitious reframing of constitutional law-making before the Civil War, Jones shows how the Fourteenth Amendment constitutionalized the birthright principle, fulfilling the long-held aspirations of African Americans.
Professor Martha S. Jones is the Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor, Professor of History, and a Professor at the SNF Agora Institute at The Johns Hopkins University. She is a legal and cultural historian whose work examines how black Americans have shaped the story of American democracy. Professor Jones is the author of Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All (2020), selected as one of Time's 100 must-read books for 2020. Her 2018 book, Birthright Citizens: A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America (2018) on which this talk is based, was the winner of the Organization of American Historians Liberty Legacy Award (best book in civil rights history), the American Historical Association Littleton-Griswold Prize (best book in American legal history), the American Society for Legal History John Phillip Reid book award (best book in Anglo-American legal history) and the Baltimore City Historical Society Scholars honor for 2020. Professor Jones holds a Ph.D. in history from Columbia University and a J.D. from the CUNY School of Law which bestowed upon her the degree of Doctor of Laws honoris causa in 2019. Prior to her current appointment, Professor Jones was a Professor of History at the University of Michigan.
Although not a college, Ben Franklin’s World is a collaboration between Colonial Williamsburg and the College of William and Mary that has assembled a growing series of podcasts on early America featuring leading scholars, authors, and the occasional political practitioner. Professor Jones’ talk is #255 in a series that now totals more than 320 episodes. Her talk is available at the first link below while the second takes you to all 320+ episodes of Ben Franklin’s World.