In 2020 we celebrate two monumental events in American history: the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, granting American women the right to vote, and the 150th anniversary of the 15th Amendment that at least nominally enfranchised African American men. To mark the occasion, URI is planning a yearlong virtual series focused on suffrage history and modern-day voting issues.

On Thursday, October 15th, Martha S. Jones, Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor and Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University, will give a virtual talk on race and suffrage titled “How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All.” Professor Jones’s books include Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All (2020) and Birthright Citizens: A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America (2018). She is a legal and cultural historian whose work examines how Black Americans have shaped the story of American democracy.

She is the winner of the Organization of American Historians’ Liberty Legacy Award for the best book in civil rights history, the American Historical Association’s Littleton-Griswold Prize for the best book in American legal history, and the American Society for Legal History’s John Phillip Reid book award for the best book in Anglo-American legal history.

Please register to attend here. This event is sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences, the Gender and Women’s Studies Program, and the Honors Program.