vanguard

September 2020 from Basic Books

Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All

The epic history of African American women’s pursuit of political power — and how it transformed America.

Winner of the 2020 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for History

Finalist for the 2020 Mark Lynton History Prize from the Columbia Journalism School and the Neiman Foundation for Journalism

A Time Magazine Must-Read Book for 2020

“An elegant and expansive history” – New York Times

In the standard story, the suffrage crusade began in Seneca Falls in 1848 and ended with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. But this overwhelmingly white women’s movement did not win the vote for most black women. Securing their rights required a movement of their own.

Vanguard is a new history of African American women’s political lives in America. She recounts how they defied both racism and sexism to fight for the ballot, and how they wielded political power to secure the equality and dignity of all persons. From the earliest days of the republic to the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and beyond, Jones excavates the lives and work of black women — Maria Stewart, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Fannie Lou Hamer, and more — who were the vanguard of women’s rights, calling on America to realize its best ideals.

Advance Praise for Vanguard:

“You cannot tell the history of modern democracy without the history of Black women, and vibrating through Martha Jones’s prose, argument, and evidence is analysis that takes Black women seriously. Vanguard brilliantly lays bare how a full accounting of black women as powerful political actors is both past and prologue. Martha Jones has given us a gift we do not deserve. In that way she is as bold and necessary to our understanding of ourselves as the women in this important work.” —Tressie McMillan Cottom, author of Thick: And Other Essays.

Bold, ambitious, and beautifully crafted, Vanguard represents more than two hundred years of Black women’s political history. From Jarena Lee to Stacey Abrams, Martha S. Jones reminds her readers that Black women stand as America’s original feminists–women who continue to remind America that it must make good on its promises.  —Erica Armstrong Dunbar, author of the award-winning Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge

In her inspiring new book, Vanguard, renowned historian Martha S. Jones gives us a sweeping narrative for our times, grounded in the multi-generational struggle of black women for a freedom and equality that would not only fulfill their rights but galvanize a broader, redemptive movement for human rights everywhere. Through the carefully interwoven stories of famous and forgotten African American women, together representing 200 years of history, Jones shows how this core of our society – so key to winning elections today – also gave us “the nation’s original feminists and antiracists.” From organizers and institution builders to preachers and writers, journalists and activists, black women found ways to rise up through the twin cracks of race and sex discrimination to elevate democracy as a whole. At a moment when that very democracy is under assault, Vanguard reminds us to look for hope in those most denied it. –Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University

Martha Jones is the political historian of African American women. And this book is the commanding history of the remarkable struggle of African American women for political power. The more power they accumulated, the more equality they wrought. All Americans would be better off learning this history and grasping just how much we owe equality’s vanguard. —Ibram X. Kendi, National Book Award-winning author of Stamped from the Beginning and How to Be an Antiracist

Press and Commentary for Vanguard:

Martha S. Jones, “Black Women’s 200 Year Fight for the Vote,” PBS American Experience, June 2020.

I joined the Law Library of Congress and the American Bar Association for their annual Law Day 2020 celebration with a discussion of “Social Movement Changing America: The Legacies of the 19th Amendment,” along with Julie Suk of the CUNY Graduate Center and Thomas Saenz of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund. May 2020.

Katie Kindelan, “Black Women Finally Getting Their Due for Their Work to Secure Women’s Right to Vote,” ABC News – Good Morning America, March 27, 2020.

 I had the chance to talk about how Black women saw voting rights at the New York Historical Society. Honored to share the panel with Lisa TetraultManisha Sinha and Stephanie McCurry. But start at the beginning to hear the keynote address from Adele Logan Alexander, a masterpiece! Watch here.

Olivia B. Waxman, “9 Women from American History You Should Know, According to Historians,” Time, March 6, 2020.

Martha S. Jones, “How Black Suffragists Fought for the Right to Vote and a Modicum of Respect,” Humanities: The Magazine of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Summer 2019.

15 Unsung Moments From American History That Historians Say You Should Know About,Time, June 30, 2019.

Martha S. Jones, “How New York’s New Monument Whitewashes the Women’s Rights Movement,” Washington Post, March 22, 2019.

Martha S. Jones, “The Bold Accomplishments of Women of Color Need to Be a Bigger Part of Suffrage History,” Smithsonian Magazine, March 19, 2019.

Martha S. Jones, “How the Daughters and Granddaughters of Former Slaves Secured Voting Rights for All,” Smithsonian Magazine, March 8, 2019.