Our Democracy is a Debate - Martha S. Jones

Mon, April 18, 2022
Dinner Program

A legal and cultural historian whose work examines how Black Americans have shaped the story of American democracy, 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. Author of Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All (2020) and Birthright Citizens: A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America (2018), Jones will explore what historical thinking reveals about the nature of democracy in the United States. At its core is debate. Martin Luther King, Jr. echoed abolitionist Theodore Parker when he adopted the metaphor of the arc, as in "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Barack Obama, borrowing from the U.S. Constitution, anticipated progress for a nation that was on "the path to a more perfect union." What these framings elide is how, across our past as a nearly 250-year-old nation, debate rather than progress has best characterized American democracy. Two central questions—citizenship and voting rights—troubled the United States from its very start. And, while the details have changed over time, these two foundational facets of our democracy continue to generate debate—and change—in our own time. Rather than fall back on adages about our journey as circular or being destined to repeat the past or even backlash, we can appreciate how contests over the character of the body politic have challenged every generation. History strongly suggests that our distinct tradition and indeed our future will include much more of the same.

As one of CMC’s 75th Anniversary Distinguished Speakers, Professor Jones will highlight issues in “Unity and Division,” one of the three academic collaboration themes of our special 75th Anniversary celebration.