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Breaking Barriers And Getting The Vote

Author

One hundred years ago, women got the vote in the U.S. Constitution. That didn’t mean all women actually got to vote. In her new book, historian Martha S. Jones describes how African-American women strategized, organized, preached and marched--sometimes alongside white suffragists and sometimes alone. They tackled racism at the same time they fought sexism. Jones calls her new book Vanguard, because, she says, "Black women are the organizers, they are the foot soldiers, they are the architects, they are the spokespeople for the necessity of African American voting rights.”

Jones traces how Black women built political skills in churches and women’s clubs … and kept struggling for laws that would keep the promise of the Nineteen Amendment.

Wed, Aug. 26 at 6pm Jones will be in conversation for a program with the National Archives Foundation. Visit this linkfor registration information.

Sheilah Kast is the host of On The Record, Monday-Friday, 9:30-10:00 am.
Melissa Gerr is a Senior Producer for On the Record. She started in public media at Twin Cities Public Television in St. Paul, Minn., where she is from, and then worked as a field producer for Oregon Public Broadcasting in Portland. She made the jump to audio-lover in Baltimore as a digital media editor at Mid-Atlantic Media and Laureate Education, Inc. and as a field producer for "Out of the Blocks." Her beat is typically the off-beat with an emphasis on science, culture and things that make you say, 'Wait, what?'