Martha S. Jones

Professor Martha S. Jones is a writer, historian, legal scholar, and public intellectual whose work focuses on the intersection of race, law, and American democracy. Jones holds the title of Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor, Professor of History, and Professor at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University. She earned a Ph.D. in history from Columbia University and a J.D. from the CUNY School of Law, a dual training that positions her to examine how legal structures and cultural forces have shaped the lives of Black Americans across centuries. Her work is devoted to understanding the politics, culture, and poetics of Black America.

Jones has developed a body of scholarly work spanning legal history, women's history, and African American history. She is the author of "Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All" and "Birthright Citizens: A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America." "Birthright Citizens" received the Organization of American Historians Liberty Legacy Award for best book in civil rights history, the American Historical Association Littleton-Griswold Prize for best book in American legal history, and the American Society for Legal History John Phillip Reid Book Award for best book in Anglo-American legal history. "Vanguard" was selected as one of Time's 100 must-read books and received the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for History. Jones is also the author of "All Bound Up Together: The Woman Question in African American Public Culture 1830-1900" and coeditor of "Toward an Intellectual History of Black Women."

Jones's work includes "The Trouble of Color: An American Family Memoir," which recounts her family's encounters with race and color through five generations. The memoir was named a Best Book of the Year by Smithsonian and TIME. Beyond her books, Jones directs the Hard Histories at Hopkins Project, examining the role of slavery and racism at Johns Hopkins University and its hospital. She has curated museum exhibitions including "Reframing the Color Line" and "Proclaiming Emancipation," and has collaborated with Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Charles Wright Museum of African American History, PBS, and Netflix.

Jones is an elected member of the American Antiquarian Society, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Society of American Historians, and the American Society for Legal History, which named her an honorary fellow. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Her research has been supported by Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, the National Humanities Center, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Library of Congress Kluge Center.

As a public historian, Jones writes for audiences at New York Times, Washington Post, the Atlantic, USA Today, Public Books, Talking Points Memo, Politico, Chronicle of Higher Education, and Time. She serves on the boards of the Society of American Historians, the National Women's History Museum, the US Capitol Historical Society, Johns Hopkins University Press, Journal of African American History, and Slavery & Abolition. Through her scholarship, public engagement, and leadership, Jones demonstrates that history is an essential tool for understanding and reshaping American democracy.