It’s great to see our historians’ brief cited by @AdamSerwer, an ace communicator about history. Wanted to add a few thoughts addressing recent convos about historians/courts/amici/etc. @rachelshelden @jdmortenson @TeraWHunter @Stephen_A_West and others. theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/… Getting the brief underway, I was pretty certain, based on decades of work as an historian of Reconstruction, that people who supported the 14th Amend. in the 1860s would NOT have unequivocally rejected ameliorative race-conscious policies. supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/2…

Out of the gate, Strawbridge: "racial classifications are wrong" and violate the 14th A. This is precisely what the framers of the amendment did not believe. A distortion of history. #affirmativeaction Let no one be taken in by this totally ahistorical claim. These folks know history is not on their side. That's why the Meese brief flat-out misrepresented the Civil Rights Act of 1866. supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/2…

I'll be closely following today's #affirmativeaction arguments in SCOTUS. While recent coverage has focused on court's legitimacy and arguments over the meaning of Brown, much of the argument comes back, as @kenji_yoshino says here to the 14th Amendment. nytimes.com/2022/10/30/us/… "This has always been the crux of the affirmative action debate. Does the 14th A’s equal protection clause forbid racial classification itself or only racial classification that entrenches historical subordination?”

Gratified that @WeinbergCollege highlighted our web exhibit, BLACK ORGANIZING IN PRE-CIVIL WAR ILLINOIS, for women's history month. We researched & wrote abt some remarkable Black women; the @CCP_org has been generative for thinking abt women's history. news.weinberg.northwestern.edu/2022/03/18/how… Among the women we highlight is Mary E. Mann, who in 1863 became Chicago's first Black public h.s. graduate and went on to be the city's first black principal. Bio here (unfortunately we didn't find a pic of her) coloredconventions.org/black-illinois…

Today: The generation-spanning impact of Mary Richardson Jones. Mrs. Jones was born free in Tennessee in 1820. About 15 yrs later, the Tenn. legislature prohibited Black men from voting, & Mary's father decided to move the family to Illinois. @CCP_org #IllinoisBlackConventions The Richardsons migrated to Alton.

Mary married John Jones in 1841, & they soon moved to Chicago. They opened their home to freedom-seekers. They collaborated with John Brown. During the Civil War, Mary was pres. of the Colored Ladies’ Freedmen’s Aid Society of Chicago.

Henry Brown of Springfield, Illinois, is best known to history as the Black man who led Lincoln's horse on the day of Lincoln's funeral. But Henry Brown was much more than that.... #presidentsday @CCP_org @ALPLM @illinoisIHLC @HopeCM @NWIHistorian @nu_hgso #BHM Born in North Carolina in 1823, Brown left home as a young person and migrated to Ohio and Ind. before settling in Ill. He and Mary Ann King fell in love in 1847. "A mutual admiration and a matrimonial engagement was the result of their first meeting," a county history recorded.