African-American women claim credit for much of the organizing, and voting-rights vigilance behind Democratic wins in the last election. You can find roots of that tradition in historian Martha Jones’s latest book. She describes how African-American women strategized, organized, preached and marched for the vote--sometimes alongside white suffragists, sometimes alone. They tackled racism at the same time they fought sexism. Jones calls her new book Vanguard, because: “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 struggled to make voting rights real.
Links: Events happening virtually at Temple Sinai/DC Feb. 27, 1pm; Johns Hopkins University Feb 10, 6pm; and Library of Congress Feb. 23, 1pm.
