Super excited to attend this @AsalhConvention roundtable for @marthasjones_ new book VANGUARD. Also on the panel: @SoulistaPhD @ProfessorCrunk @Drsharonharley. Will try to live tweet. #ASALH2020 #citeblackwomen
And be sure to check out @marthasjones_ books and 39 others on my latest Reads for the Rest of Us list @MsMagazine msmagazine.com/2020/09/02/sep…
.@ProfessorCrunk is up first: Jones gives African American women's history through the fight to vote. Doesn't frame it solely through white women's framework. Voting is but one avenue that they demand to be heard. #asalh2020
Cooper: The book lays plain that Black women care deeply about politics. Tackles voter suppression and voter depression (HT Kimberle Crenshaw). #asalh2020
Cooper: The book highlights bodily disruption as well as the role of the church in Black women's fight for suffrage.#asalh2020
.@SoulistaPhD is up now: Thankful for this book and the work of @marthasjones_ and @ASALH for bringing these voices to the forefront for ever. Timely topic this election year especially. #asalh2020
Ford: The book illuminates the very deliberate attempt of Black women to acquire political power. Introduces readers to women previously ignored or invisible. The books will reach far beyond the academy. #asalh2020
Next up is @Drsharonharley: The book, Vanguard, by @marthasjones_, shows so clearly how Black women were involved in the women's suffrage movement. Major leaders of the movement. #asalh2020
Harley: Jones includes so many facets of Black women's quests for power: political, economic, etc. Does the humanitarian focus obfuscate the tension of some of the actors like Church Terrell and Wells? Calls Vanguard "a remarkable book." #asalh2020
.@marthasjones_ will now talk about the book herself. She gives praise to the other panelists and Dr. Terborg-Penn for their work. Dr. Terborg-Penn left an indelible mark on Dr. Jones and she stands on her extraordinary and rare shoulders. #asalh2020
Jones: "Dignity" and "humanity" were two words that stuck out to her as she wrote this book. Felt it was essential that she push back on the idea that the book is only about identity politics. Did deep investigation on these ideas. #asalh2020
[NOTE I seem to have lost several messages along the way. Not sure where they went, will try to add the thoughts back in.]
Jones: Troublesome to write a book that spans 200 years. People think it could be comprehensive but it isn't. Difficult choices need to be made re: what stories stay and which go. #asalh2020
Jones: Vanguard sits on the shelf next to books by Keisha Blain and others who are doing this amazing historiography about Black women. #asalh2020
Jones: "When Black women are brutalized, white women watch. This is something that is rarely confessed, rarely spoken." But Black women are often not alone when they are assaulted. Example of being dragged off of trains. #asalh2020
Jones: White women condone violence against women by their passivity and complicity. How do you as a Black woman build solidarity with a white woman who just watched you get brutalized on the train ride over to the convention? #asalh2020
Jones: Suffrage movement had to run its course because white women made it impossible for Black women to find a place in that movement. #asalh2020
From the amazing @ProfKori: can you say more about the consolidation of political power that Black women tried to accomplish, especially in light of the fact as explicit in the book that Black women are not a monolith. #asalh2020
Jones: No Black women anti-suffragists as far as she found. Describes the differences in NAWSA and NACW; warnings to not get too close to Alice Paul. Washington and Terrell are at odds about the tactics to achieve suffrage. Terrell much more radical. #asalh2020
Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham stresses the fact that Black women have never swayed from the importance of the vote. Jones: Black women know politics and esp voting is a long game in the US. We are now back to an era of voter suppression. #asalh2020
Jones: Black women worked on the ground in suffrage schools, etc. Our politics must never be only about the vote, it's a part of politics, but many fronts on which to work. The struggle for political rights are a long game, a permanent facet of our democracy. #asalh2020
Vanguard by @marthasjones_ will be out on Sept. 8 from @BasicBooks. Dr. Jones asks for readers to try to support local Black booksellers if possible or check your local library. #asalh2020 #citeblackwomen @AsalhConvention
