national constitution center and to tonight's convening of america's town hall. i am jeffrey rose of the president of this wonderful institution and let's begin as always by inspiring ourselves with the national constitution centers mission statement. the national constitution center is the only institution in america charted by congress to increase awareness and understanding of the constitution among the american people on a non-partisan basis, and i want to give a special thanks to the and welsh mcnulty institute for women's leadership at villanova university for their great collaboration on a series of discussions, including this one, which is part of the constitution center's women and the constitution initiative and i want to also thank mcnulty foundation for their generous generous support which makes these program is possible. they spread so much light and we're so grateful for our collaboration and now i will introduce the panelists and then tonight's moderator. nadia brown is professor of government chair of women's and gender studies and affiliate in the african-american studies program at georgetown university. she's also an idle family fellow at the mcnulty institute at villanova. she is the author of the award-winning sisters in the state house black women and legislative decision making and distinct identities minority women and us politics. she's also in editor for the washington post's political science blog the monkey cage. betty collier thomas as professor of history at temple university she is also the inaugural director of temples center for african-american history and culture. she's written several books including african-american women and the vote 1837 to 1965 and she's currently writing about african american women and politics and martha jones is the society of black alumni presidential professor professor of history and a professor at the snf agora institute at the johns hopkins university. she is the author of the pathbreaking vanguard. how black women broke barriers won the vote and insisted on equality for all as well as birthright citizens a history of race rights in antebellum america. it's such an honor to welcome this superb panel of scholars, and i'm also thrilled that the moderator for tonight's program is my wonderful colleague lana ulrich senior director of content at the center. she does so much to make all of our programming possible and over to you llama. great. thank you so much jeff for that wonderful introduction. thank you to everyone here attending this wonderful seminar, and i'm so looking forward to this conversation with these wonderful scholars we have tonight. so professor collier thomas, i'd like to start with you and i'd like to ask you about your landmark volume african american women and the vote which begins in 1837 with the first anti-slavery convention of american women, which was an interracial gathering of women held in new york to define their roles independent of men in the crucial struggles of that era to end slavery in southern states and racial discrimination in northern states. and as your co-author ann gordon writes in the introduction 1837 replaces 1848, which was the year of seneca falls in order to emphasize the preeminency of anti-slavery agitation, and the local history of african-americans including women and the volume also ends with 1965 which is the passage of the voting rights act. so i wanted to ask if you could just say a little bit more about that crucial date of 1837. would you say that that is the starting point of the story of black women suffrage and representation in america and why or why not i wouldn't say that's the starting point for african-american women, but african-american women were certainly interested in it. but lana first, i want to say that we didn't and i did not author that book. it is an edited work. i was at the slash in july and and asked me a note and said could she meet and talk with me? and i said yes, and she said what do you think is the most important subject that has not been dealt with in terms of black women history and history period now you have to understand that that was in the 1980s midnight 1980s when she asked that question. and i said well politics. i said nothing has been written about politics and black women. she said well, how can we do i would like to to university of massachusetts has given me some money and i have been given the money to do a national conference and then we want to put together a book. and she said i don't know anybody that area i said, well, i know lots of people so i mentioned roslyn turberg pen and and a number of persons in in the field who i knew were working on different topics. and so that's how that came to be and we did that national conference, but the paper sat for until when was that book published that book was published in the in and around 2000. i think late. um, yeah, so it was published decades have to we had the conference and we had edited the papers. so that's of that book began. so, you know a lot of that is not original to me my piece in that book is on francis ellen watkins harper. and that too was written to be published in 19th century. um, it wasn't -- americans by august maya and that was earlier and i was invited to write a paper there and i wrote some paper on harper and august maya any of you familiar with august maya. well, august maya called me on a sunday morning and said doctor can you thomas? you cannot have 30 some pages on francis out ellen watkins harper frederick douglass. only received 25. so i called john hope franklin and he said yes, that's why nobody knows who she is. and that's why she deserves those pages. and so i said well it doesn't have to be there. i was famous for just pulling things. and so i i pulled it and and that sat there then until we did that conference. so it was written much earlier. um, so in terms of 1837, we thought that we should find people and we should trace it through this history through from 1837 right on up into the more recent period of that time and that's what we did. we had no idea that this was going to turn into a major book. but 19 18 37 was a beginning point, but as lisa tetrault has explained and others now who have published so many books. we know far more now than we knew then but what we wrote the scholars wrote. about black women these two were seminal works for all of those people. some of them were working on dissertations and all kinds of things. so that's how we came to that point. now martha has has written in her wonderful book. a lot about the transitional period and both martha and i wrote about that in our books on women and the church. okay mind jesus jobs and justice and and hers. senior moment martha. what is the title? all bound up together all bound up together. i should remember that from you. and and so that's how these came to be. and and i think we were martha and i were amongst the first who began to trace, um the whole question of suffrage and an african-americans women struggled with that to the church, which is where it emanated. but not only that did it emanate from there, but as i argued in jesus jobs and justice the women who become so involved in the suffrage movement the national suffrage movement. they are these church women. and it's a very involved process. so the ascent of black women was very different from that of white women. but no ye this one of the quotes that i sent john was from 1859 from laura. and i was stunned. when i saw that particular, um, peace and quote, i don't know who that woman was and you know, she was not mentioned, but obviously the people in that period knew so in 1859, and obviously she a free black woman. he makes that statement that said we are as interested call it women are as interested in. politics as the colored men that says it all. you tell it women black women african-american women, whatever you want to call them then. they were there from the beginning. and before the civil war concerned about politics and you see it pulled all the way through. you see that it bates and great detail on suffrage and i have to stop because i do talk a lot. and i don't want to go one as my husband would say preaching. i don't want to go on but you you get the picture so, you know, we can go on with that. i'm discussion, but there is a lot there and we can't put it in these books. no, definitely pieces. absolutely, and thank you so much for clarifying that and for telling the story about that conference. it's just really interesting to hear how that came together and amazing that it took that long to get that to get that work out there and you mentioned your your research into francis ellen watkins harper. i know you were telling us the story as well about how you discovered her while you were researching black newspapers, so i might want to ask you a little bit later on just more about that research and any other figures that you came across during during that so professor jones professor collier thomas mentioned, you know your work in this area as well. so, you know, feel free to respond to anything that she said and maybe say a little bit more about some of the earlier movements, you know, the importance of the church the anti-slavery societies color conventions anything else that might help shed additional light in this area. well, thanks to you lana for hosting us along with jeff rosen in the national constitution center. it's a tremendous honor to be here with dr. brown and dr. collier thomas who has really been far too modest about her own work and the role of the volume that she co-edited on african american women in the vote one of the important things that i say about my own evolution as a historian is that i benefited from that volume from the work of dr. roslyn turbog pen because i read this work before i read the major works on say susan anthony and elizabeth cady stanton right my introduction to the history of women in the vote came from this. path-breaking work on black women and voting rights and i consider myself fortunate because in a sense i didn't have to unlearn right the other histories that were so predominant for far too long on and and i thank dr. collier thomas for including me anywhere in her orbit on this, but it is correct that i think one of the things we share is this strong conviction that you cannot understand the history of black women's politics if you don't understand black women's politics in their churches in their faith communities and one of the things about that readers of vanguard or sometimes surprised to discover, is that the book begins in church and it begins in the african methodist episcopal church. a figure an extraordinary black woman preacher named gerina lee now. we are in the 1820s not the 1830s and i begin with purina lee because it turns out in order for black women to fully enter to fully level a claim on american politics. they have to begin with ideas right before you get to the activism before you get to the organizing before you get to the interventions. they need a critique, right? they need a view right that challenges a political order that countenances racism and sexism in the intersection of the two and hence black women's exclusion from politics. so we go back to women like gerina lee in the church because that is the crucible, right? that is a critical crucible where black women are working out a vision for american politics one that they will champion for a very long time alone, but very importantly in these early years a critique right that begins to make room for them in american politics and as you allude to lana, we will see that manifest. yes in black churches particularly black methodist churches in these early years. we will see it manifest in anti-slavery societies. we will see that critique manifest in the political movement that we refer to as the colored conventions again, and again black women coming to the podium picking up their pens and the anti-slavery and black press leveling that critique that says no racism and no sexism in politics, but the church we can't tell that story without telling the story of black women in church. thank you for that professor brown, you know, please feel free to comment on anything that dr. collier thomas and and professor jones have said and you know your work focuses a lot on contemporary issues relating to suffrage representation and intersectionality which dr. doon just mentioned and you also write about black women voters, but also candidates and representatives for instance in your articles and in your books sisters in the state house, but before we get to talking a little bit about the current state of representation from your research, just wanted to know if there were any if there was anything about the history that's been discussed so far or any of the figures from the past that speak to you as well. i know in your book you site for example, dr. anna julia cooper. is there anybody else that you wanted to mention or put on the table too being central to understanding this? 3 and so i'm very thankful to be able to share space today with colleagues professor betty collier thomas and professor jones because their work is so canonical for people like me and political science to do this research on black women's politics because there wasn't a there there are four mother dual prestage is one of the first black women to receive a phd in political science and started studying black women and before that right there really were not in depth studies on black women. period right mac women and politics and as many of the audience will know political science and history used to be the same field and then after world war two political science splits off and becomes its own. you know this own thing so much of our origins as political scientists. we owe to historians, but the discipline the the ways that history was enabled to really dig deep and understand the presence of black americans in the united states at the founding of our democracies something that we haven't been able to do quite fully in political science yet. so political scientists stand on the work of people like professor collier thomas and professor jones in order to get us to the stage where we are now, so there would not be scholars like myself or wendy smooth evelyn simeon nicole floyd alexander if we weren't for historians, right because they're just they're just wasn't much of understanding that black women had different political behavior that black women had different political views and prep policy preferences had different political tactics. so so i share this to say that this is a new field black women studies and politics is new. i wrote the first book on black women state legislators in 2014, right? so very very recently just goes to show that so bringing in figures like anna julia cooper. france it's out. i'm ellen watkins. harper are people that we know throughout history have been doing black women's politics. we just haven't talked about them in our discipline of political science. and so i start my classes with this historical look and i've had just fortune opportunity to teach both professor collier thomas a professor jones' work in the beginning of the semester right because they need my students really need to deeply understand that what we do in political science now right since the voting rights act since black women have more access to political representation doesn't mean that black women just woke up one morning right in the 1960s and said now we're going to engage in politics but instead right black women have been dwelling for political rights and act as activists as grass street leaders before the ballot and that if i think it's incorrect to think that black women's politics in my own field, you know, some feel the political science. starts only when we're seeing black women as elected officials are black women. forecasting balance, right but as professors collier thomas and jones have mentioned right? this is a long lineage that starts in 1820 and even before so in my own work, i oftentimes start with mariah stewart and as someone who is leading a charge as a race woman, right and she's talking to audiences about black women's political concerns very early on and this is a figure that i honestly would not have known about if it weren't for the work of historians and i think it's so important that we're having this under disciplinary conversation today because there has to be a much more expansive view of what black women are doing politically. so while we're championing kamala harris the first black woman vp, we have to understand the soldiers on which she stands i am so pleased that you mentioned julia prestige. you because i stumble across her at least almost 40 years ago. and i was looking for trying to find out what had been written by political scientists. and i discovered nothing. and i checked again. um 30 years ago when i arrived at temple i said, well, maybe it's more now nothing. until finally i stumble across wendy smooth and i said what political scientists? writing about black women and vote. well prestige makes the point. she was concerned that that in political science departments. nothing was taught about black people in politics period and it's black women were totally exclusive. so she was i put that the front in terms of a pioneer and people don't know her name today. so thank you very very much for that. and yes. i have all the copies of your work about those states that are going in politics to stay in my next book. so i have you two. okay, so we want to thank you for that work. yes, definitely. thank you professor brown too for for your groundbreaking work in this area. so professor collier thomas speaking about you know, this this new history and you know as as dr. jones and and dr. brown mentioned your work in this area and your original research, just going back to you know, the stories that you told us about looking through these newspapers discovering francis ellen watkins harper, you know, you mentioned that these were conventions that were being held across the country that were made up of all all black men and just she was the only woman she was the only woman there that was speaking and writing and and so, you know, i think maybe if you could just say a little bit more about her how significant it was that you discovered this information about her and i guess more about you know, your original research in this area and how you you've you know contributed to help building up this foundation of work around these questions. well, first of all, my dissertation was on the baltimore black community 1865 to 1910. um, it was recommended to me. by i can't think of his last name. he was major major scarlet university of chicago richard who did slavery in the cities. you know, it's me. no, i was looking at martha thinking that she went to his name. but anyway wait and we can drop this way. yes. i took a course a research course under him at emory university. and his thing was that all of us had to do this original research on urban centers, and he wanted atlanta. he was a visiting professor. so therefore he was looking for us to do the research for him. and so he decided that i should he wanted me to go through the minutes of the the minutes of the the city minutes of atlanta and track from 1860 up to the turn of the century the patterns of race. and what they were doing? well, he had to go get permission from the city for me to do that and they put a table out in the lobby. now. this is in the days of segregation. let's make this very clear when i was doing my masters. we were still in segregation. okay? that was in the 1960s 1965. and so they put this table in the lobby. and they brought up these big old books and some of you who have worked in those books. they they're like felt those old books and and and it looked to me like the red red dust of, georgia. and there was sitting and all these white people would come and stare at me. and i went paged by page and and did all these note cards. we didn't have xerox. we didn't have internet or anything. it was by hand on the note cards. and so i tracked everything that they were doing in the first thing i saw they were moving the bodies of blacks out of white cemeteries. um, they were doing they were if you were down and what was the downtown area sitting on a bench after six o'clock. they would arrest you and put you on the chain game for years free labor. i was just amazed it opened me up to a whole new world. so from that. when i went to washington dc to teach it howard university following that. then he was he was one of the people leading the political campaign and i can't think of who that was either for the democrats and so i went down to his office and i said, you know, i'm working on a dissertation. what should i do a topic on he said well, you know, all these cities have been done on race relations and so forth, but nobody has touched baltimore. and they have done nothing on baltimore because it's neither southern northern the patterns are not clear. and he said you should do that. and so i said, okay. well a little did i know that was only one article scholarly article that had ever been written. nobody had done anything. so i said well, how am i gonna do this and i say well in 1954. might know was when they began to. microfilm um black newspapers to preserve them thousands had already been lost. and so the baltimore and baltimore the afro-american and and several of the little newspapers had been well only the baltimore after america was done because i had to go to enoch pratt library and and you know what? i'm talking about martha being a pratt library and when i first went there and i asked i just thought the library had lots of stuff on black people. and i said, well i'm looking from they said we we don't have anything on --. so amazed and so um newspaper and i fell upon these conventions and these were the conventions that would be in hell because the south had to try to re-enter the union. and so here on this stage. was this black woman? i hadn't seen black women in anything. well, of course you didn't have much to see them in at that time. and i said, who is this woman? so therefore i became cognizant of her and started picking up pieces here and there and so i started with those newspapers and indexing those newspapers myself. and i was just stunned with the world of information in those newspapers. what was it? um the new york friedman just a number in that late 19th century. and of course they expanded into the 20th century. so i picked the pieces as i put it all these little pieces on harbor. and and i was my mind i was just blown away with her. and in fact neil urban painter heard me give a paper on her at a conference in miami. and she said, you know, i'm with university of north carolina press. yeah, i want you to go home and i want you to get that paper typed and to me because we're going to publish and i had a contract coming to temple to do that work, but i turned because the lily endowment off me a million dollars to do the history of black women and religion go all over the world that my researchers did for that book. so therefore harper got set aside. and that paper then um that i wrote earlier sat there. and from there then and from reading those newspapers page by page. i discovered a world and learned. everything you could think about about black women and black people editorials. and so i started as i said typing out and copying this stuff. so now i have a massive archives all these different subjects so i know these people in different worlds you see now, i don't suggest and none of none of my students these days would do that kind of work. okay, but i loved it you have to love history to do what we do and political science to do. what you do? and it is tedious. and and it's lonely. but that's what you have to do. so that's how i came to harbor. and i have five chapters of a book on how i'm harper. that has been sitting downstairs now for years. maybe i'll get back to it at some point with material that people have not used also, but it's hard. thank you for sharing that i was yeah, because once again i want to just reveal myself as someone who follows in dr. collier thomas's footsteps. my book all bound up together on is titled for a quote from one of frances harper's great speeches from the 1860s in the struggles over voting rights and the voting rights for women versus black folk women black women versus white women and more. you know, she is native baltimore and raised by an uncle who's an educator and activist and more an anti-slavery lecture a poet. i think she in many for a long time. she got more attention from literary scholars than she did from political historians. but to me, there is no one who better exemplifies black women's politics in this. middle 19th century period in part because watkins harper is is one of those figures who teaches us what is distinct about black women's political vision and it is that critique of racism and sexism, but when she comes to those meetings part of what she talks about it's not about women's property rights not even about the vote. she wants to talk about how black women are being abused in segregated transportation on ejected from ladies cars ridiculed and more and she really teaches us the ways in which black women distinctly come to politics through their own distinct experiences and concerns she goes on to be a great lecturer in the post-war period in the american south she will continue to be a novelist and raise her own daughter to be an elocutionist. she has a remarkable arc of a life, but for me, she's indispensable for trying to tell this distinct story that i think we're all trying to discover of how black women particularly come to politics and francis harper is there to tell that story by the 1860s with great eloquence. we might also at that if you go to the liberator you you can you can find extensive information. this is before the war on harper papa was a she was a speaker on on the platform with many of the many of the people whites who were speaking about savory enslavement and that's how she earned her living. so he no one is really fully tracked her in the liberator. let me add so so if you've got a graduate student somebody they should do that that foregrounds her work that she does after the war. also, um, there was a great piece written. i think it was in the ame christian recorder about how how papa was considered an equal as a speaker to frederick douglass, but he earned more money the article went on to say, okay that's in the christian recorder and that and they compared her. i can't think of the white woman's name right now who who was considered to be one of the top lecturers of that time, but finally they stopped comparing her because she was in a league of her own. great. yes, and we at the ncc we've learned a lot about francis allen watkins harper both through, you know, your work professor collier thomas and you're you're a advice to us on the exhibit. i know you're one of our advisors so for anybody in the audience interested in learning more about her, you know, we'll post links in the chat to we will post the liberator link to that as well as links to the 19th amendment exhibit and some of the online interactives we have so you can find out more we have some audience questions and professor brown. i want to tee up one or two to you. speaking about additional figures warren wolf asks, can we please mention shirley chisholm? i know you said you've been doing some research into her. i know professor collier thomas. i think you may have you may know her so you could share a little bit too, but professor brown if you want to maybe speak about truly chisholm and then charles morgan ask where can i find other women in politics that have been overlooked? right. so thank you for both of those questions. so i want to start with the latter question first because i think it's so important that we ask the other question about like why aren't we? why don't we know about these women? why are there histories hidden or are they hiding in plain sight and so some of the things that i i particularly asked my students to do is walk around and see you whose names are on buildings whose names aren't there. we're i mean georgetown in washington, dc and this is a place for there is so much history where women black women names are on buildings on street corners right there. they're part of our living memories, but walk past them every day, but we don't spend time. figuring out who they are and if we open our eyes right to learn about who these namesakes are. that's just every day empowerment right that that we can be engaging in but that doesn't mean that that's half the story right because there are so many women that we don't know who they are and that's willful right the eraser of marginalized identities are people that have contrary views to american politics or portray a different side of america, right? ask america to live up to its constitutional duties and responsibilities to art all citizens are oftentimes hidden underneath rugs, right? we're not thinking about women who like women communists for example, right? we're not thinking about black women socialists those that that don't uphold american democratic values the way that we want so i would i would ask us again to think about you know, the reasons and why we don't talk about some and then why there are some that we do and we don't acknowledge who they are right and kind of their fullness and so to talk a little bit about shirley chisholm. yeah. it's so important to mention her name, right? this is the first black woman who's elected to congress in 1968 who then turns around and seeks a democratic party nomination for president in 1972 goes on to serve in congress for many years retires, and then leads a life of continued public service, but part about shirley chisholm. that is most i think remarkable is that he comes from an educators background, right? she was a school teacher someone who defeated a black panther right or i'm sorry civil rights icon for her seat in congress, but right the voters that elected her knew her. knew her passion in the community for helping families for helping children for helping low-income folks immigrants like like her and so her passion for people is what voters really embraced and i think some of this kind of gets divorced from how we idolize how it's being this first right this trailblazer, but not turning back to the policies and politics that she that she championed much of which we see today. again. this is something that professor jones mentioned black women's politics often coming out of their own lip experiences. so the things that they're fighting for for in politics today much like chipism our rooted in their own lived experiences. how they've experienced the world to kind of the challenge than troubles that they've seen and a lot of this right again is wrapped up in the intersectional nodes of racism sexism classism, you know living in a white hetero patriarchical society, but that that doesn't diminish black women shine, right? they find ways out of no way and this is the work that i wanted to do is to show this very strong world force of black women and politics to put their issues to the fore right? this is the same thing that that chisholm did it was not necessarily taking on what the democratic party wanted her to take on but black men in the democratic party who wanted to take on to be a hundred percent honest, right? it was her conviction of living this life in a black woman's body being responsible and responsive to her constituents and constituents nationwide right recognizing that there weren't other locales with black women representatives. and so she represents more than just those that were in her brooklyn district, right, but thinking about black women nationwide until barbara jordan joined her and then later on we see yvonne briefly work join her in congress. but i also want to mention i don't want to wrap up soon to be be respectful of time. but that surely chisholm has daughters shirley chisholm has heirs and people that bear the legacy of her political activism and her mantra right one in which they can't you know disentangle a feminist ideology from a black from a black ideology right seeing and living in this world as a black woman requires black women of politics to speak up using different kinds of tactics. one thing that truly chisholm was really extraordinary good at where's talking to her colleagues those that sometimes held racist sentiments people that odinarily people would say, why are you talking to this person? right this this is a congress person who believes in segregation, but she would see it colonel of good in someone or a good in their policies and try to work that work that angle and that's what black women in politics do right some of them, you know their idea. but there's also people who can be ideologues and then also work to bring a consensus to the table right and trying to figure out how do we work with people to get a policy pass particularly right with you need a majority you need a coalition to form things. so chisholm was really a stout as student and knowing how to do this that that she won all the time. not that her tactics weren't without criticism, but it goes back to this black woman's ethos right of understanding your position through your own positionality and then finding ways to work with others. you'll be very happy to know. one of my former students her book on chisholm will be published by oxford university in the spring. she called me and told me several days ago. her name is zynga frasier. oh, yes, and she said brooklyn, so zynga's book. i was surprised will be coming out that she has worked on for 14 years. and so i'm just as proud as i can be of zynga and i can promise you it's going to be groundbreaking. but i am i knew i knew shirley chisholm, too. i if you look in sisters in the struggle, you will see a photograph of me with shirley chisholm. shirley chisholm was very concerned about her constituents. and so she developed policies and a number of things that would impact her people. there in new york well in the 1980s. as you had the the development of black museums then you had all of these storefronts and places that had popped up across the country and called themselves museums. and so she pressured the national endowment for the humanities for them to fund. for them to fund programs where these people could apply for grants. to do exhibitions professional exhibitions and so forth. and so i shared at the national black caucus weekend. um, three years we had a session peggy cooper peggy cooper. a lot of people don't know who i'm talking about now some do peggy cooper charlotte schism and and myself on those sessions at the black caucus where we were speaking to of course, um persons from all over the country who were involved in politics and we were arguing for money for these institutions. she managed to get the national the head of the national and not the head of the joe. duffy was the head of the national endowment for the cube manages. um, but the head of of the particular divisions. to fund then these workshops to teach these people lay people a lot of malay people, um how to write a proposal that could be funded. they didn't know how to write a proposals so, she asked me to work with these people i said, okay, and so i became the person who developed the program and traveled all over the united states to see holes in the wall to see of strange places that they called museum, but she was concerned about the jamaica new york, um, black museum because they had applied and applied and could not get a grant. and so, um, she then had me come to new york and i was shocked she had a long white limousine to pick me up. and i went and talked with all of the heads of of these these institutions there and worked to help them write those proposals, but then we found out that they could write the best proposals and that any age were willing to fund a proposal for you to do that, but not to fund a program. and so that became the next issue so she was into all kinds of things and and really worked closely with her people to see that their issues were addressed because she came from the bottom and those women's clubs there in brooklyn. um and and had her way up. into politics and she tells that story and one of her books you see, i think it's unbought none boss one of them. so yes, there's much to be said there so we look forward to zingers book. and we look for many others as well. absolutely. yeah, we'll definitely keep an eye out for that book at the ncc and hope to do a program when that comes out professor jones. feel free to add anything more to the discussion about shirley chisholm and in the q&a. there's a couple other women that have been mentioned as well including barbara jordan polly murray fannie lee hammer. so if you know feel free to comment on on any of those figures, too. yeah, these are you know, the women on whose shoulders vice president kamala harris tells us she stands these women who are work toward and then work beyond the finally the 1965 voting rights act. which for the first time in us history brings black women and men right to the polls relatively unfettered so partly in our convers. we began with where do where does the story begin one of the misnomers about the history of women in the vote in the us is that it ends in 1920 with the adoption of the 19th amendment but for too many black american women the 19th amendment is a disappointment. it is a failure. they remain disenfranchised by jim crow laws by lynching and violence. and so we must tell the story all the way to 1965 and beyond the great barber jordan from houston texas the first black woman from the american south to be elected to congress who is there to open the impeachment proceedings in the house of representatives against president richard nixon. it is in just a stunning moment in us history and jordan knows precisely where she stands how she got there. it means for her to be initiating these charges against the president of the united states. someone asked about pauline murray a long lifetime of activism from very left party politics is dr. brown pointed to all the way to her investiture as a priest in the episcopal church. i think a real inheritor of the tradition of the church women who we were talking about just a bit earlier on the great fanny lou hamer who is getting such important attention now with two new books from dr. keisha blaine and dr. kate larson, you know hammer is to me the sort of figure who understands not only politics and voting rights in the in the gritty trenches of mississippi. she understand. television camera she understands how to bring black americans claims for voting rights to congress to the president to the political parties, but into the living rooms of americans and she does so i think with almost unparalleled effect, so there are so many women. i think we could hold up on an evening like this. these are just some but i think vice president harris is right when she gently but deliberately points us to this chapter in us political history and says now it is time if this is not a chapter that you knew it is time to learn this chapter and clearly all our work is there for folks to come to and to understand better what the vice president was trying to teach us back in the summer of 2020 when she accepted the democratic nomination. great professor brown. we're just a few minutes away from the end of the program. i was hoping that you could talk a little bit about you know your advice to teach other teachers in schools who want to you know, teach students about that this history and we also have a question from drew brent benfer who asks what guiding questions do you recommend for high school students who are studying the political history of african american women? well, i would love to pick up where professor jones stopped. so it's the political history to the modern day. so professor jones and vanguard with looking at stacey abrams and her legacy that building really upon women like fannie lou hamer, right? so there are stories that women like fannie lou hamer who have have lost right family does not gonna lift the congress right? she runs he tries to have the mississippi freedom democratic party set doesn't happen. right and that's where her story could have ended. but it doesn't we remember her the same we remember stacey abrams who story could have ended when she lost the 2018 gubernatorial race, and now we see that she has a much longer political life. and so i i would push us to think about these connections and how for black women's politics what looks like a loss is not a loss right black women are like a phoenix, right? we rise from the ashes right? there's things that black women keep fighting for because the politics aren't done. the job isn't over and so i would i would suggest that high school students learn from the work of professor jones professor collier thomas much of which is super accessible, right? it is written in ways that you know, lay people can read and understand them political science not so much unfortunately, but i would but my own work is ethnographic. it's qualitative, right? it leads with the the narratives of black women who are running for office and are serving in office not to bring voice to the powerless right not to speak, you know, not to amplify the voices of people that don't have a microphone but to shape them in ways that are recognizable to political scientists. so if i were if i were looking to create text for for high school students, i would start with some of these more narrative based approaches as opposed to kind of leading with these quality quantitative methods that are really heavy and statistics and having to have a background and advanced methods that many high school students don't have thank you so much professor collier thomas professor jones and professor brown for such an illuminating and interesting and deep conversation on this important topic. i'm i'm sorry that we have to close. i hope to continue this conversation with future programming and for all of you who joined tonight. thank you so much for being here. we'll post this video on our website. we'll also podcast the audio out so that will come out on our podcast and all of the resources that were posted to the chat will be available on our website as well in case you're interested in learning more. thank you again. have a good evening and we'll see you i'm 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