Birthright Citizens, Martha S. Jones
Birthright Citizens, Martha S. Jones
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Birthright Citizens
A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America

Author: Martha S. Jones

Narrator: Janina Edwards

Unabridged: 8 hr 58 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 01/05/2021


Synopsis

Birthright Citizens tells how African American activists radically transformed the terms of citizenship for all Americans.

Before the Civil War, colonization schemes and black laws threatened to deport former slaves born in the United States. Birthright Citizens recovers the story of how African American activists remade national belonging through battles in legislatures, conventions, and courthouses. They faced formidable opposition, most notoriously from the US Supreme Court decision in Dred Scott. Still, Martha S. Jones explains, no single case defined their status. Former slaves studied law, secured allies, and conducted themselves like citizens, establishing their status through local, everyday claims. All along they argued that birth guaranteed their rights.

With fresh archival sources and an ambitious reframing of constitutional law-making before the Civil War, Jones shows how when the Fourteenth Amendment constitutionalized the birthright principle, the aspirations of black Americans' aspirations were realized.

About Martha S. Jones

Martha S. Jones is the Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor and Professor of History at The Johns Hopkins University. She was formerly a Presidential Bicentennial Professor at the University of Michigan, and was a founding director of the Michigan Law School Program in Race, Law and History. She is 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.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Georgie on August 02, 2020

Birthright Citizens takes a deep dive into the free black communities of the Antebellum period, specifically through laws and court proceedings. I brought very little prior knowledge into my reading of this book and struggled accordingly - at times it was quite dense - but learned so much. Every pag......more

Goodreads review by Madlyn on June 01, 2021

I appreciate authors who bring historical awareness to the readers in terms of racial injustice to Black African Americans.......more

Goodreads review by Claire on December 15, 2024

I'll admit that current politics with the threat of eliminating birthright citizenship prompted me to read this title. However, it is all history, albeit fascinating history. Jones does something more like a people's history, going beyond the landmark moments of the Dred Scott verdict and 13-15th Am......more

Goodreads review by Jamie on January 09, 2024

I thought that this was a really good work of history. It was smaller in scope than I expected it to be. Professor Jones focuses on baltimore to tease out how free people of color acted before the Dred Scott decision declared them to be non-rights-bearing non-citizens. Were they able to exercise som......more

Goodreads review by Jeremy on November 22, 2019

A truly phenomenal and path-breaking book, Birthright Citizens: History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America is highly recommended. The author, Dr. Martha A. Jones, holds an endowed chair in the History Department of Johns Hopkins University. Before going to graduate school, she earned a law degr......more