As part of our “Women on Wednesdays” series, please join the Women & Politics Institute celebrate the Women’s Suffrage Centennial, which commemorates the 1920 certification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, granting women the right to vote.

Dr. Martha S. Jones, of Johns Hopkins University, will discuss her new book, 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,” with WPI Executive Director Betsy Fischer Martin.

Representing over two hundred years of African American women's political history, Dr. Martha S. Jones recounts how Black women defied both racism and sexism to fight for the ballot, giving us 'the nation's original feminists and antiracists.' Vanguard interweaves stories of famous and forgotten African American women -- Maria Stewart, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Fannie Lou Hamer -- who were the “vanguard of women's rights,” reminding us to “look for hope in those most denied it,” while “calling on America to realize its best ideals.”

Dr. Martha S. Jones is the Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor and Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University. A legal and cultural historian, Dr. Jones is author of Birthright Citizens and All Bound up Together, and a co-editor of Toward an Intellectual History of Black Women. She is co-president of the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians, the oldest and largest association of women historians in the United States, and she sits on the executive board of the Organization of American Historians. She holds a Ph.D. in history from Columbia University and a J.D. from the CUNY School of Law.

Betsy Fischer Martin is an Emmy-winning journalist and former TV news executive. Currently, she is the Executive Director of the Women & Politics Institute at American University and a faculty member in the School of Public Affairs, where she teaches courses on campaigns and elections. During her earlier career in television news, she spent 23 years at NBC News serving as the longtime Executive Producer of Meet the Press with Tim Russert and as the Managing Editor of NBC News Political Programming.

A native of New Orleans, Fischer Martin did her undergraduate and graduate work at American University in Washington, DC. She is a cum laude graduate of their School of Public Affairs and earned a master’s degree in Broadcast Journalism from the AU School of Communication.

"Women on Wednesdays": Women's Suffrage Centennial with Dr. Martha S. Jones, in conversation with Betsy Fischer Martin