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Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All
Top of the pile
82
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
54/100Critics
96/100Scholars
96/100Author:
Martha S. Jones
Publisher:
Basic Books
Date:
September 8, 2020
In Vanguard, acclaimed historian Martha S. Jones offers 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.
What The Reviewers Say
Jones has written an elegant and expansive history of Black women who sought to build political power where they could.
Martha S. Jones, a professor of history at Johns Hopkins University, draws on recent historical scholarship and her own deep research into personal papers, speeches and essays to acquaint us with scores of female activists in a well-paced, readable and relevant book.
Jones’ book is a welcome addition to the spate of books on woman suffrage that have been published this year in honor of the Centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment. Through her rigorous scholarship and out-of-the-box perspective, she sheds new and important light on the crucial role of Black women in winning and ensuring the right to vote.
