Harvard Book Store's virtual event series welcomes MARTHA S. JONES—Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor and professor of history at Johns Hopkins University—for a discussion of her latest book, Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All. She will be joined in conversation by Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES.

Contribute to Support Harvard Book Store

While payment is not required, we are suggesting a $3 contribution to support this author series, our staff, and the future of Harvard Book Store—a locally owned, independently run Cambridge institution. In addition, by purchasing a copy of Vanguard on harvard.com, you support indie bookselling and the writing community during this difficult time.

About Vanguard

In the standard story, the suffrage crusade began in Seneca Falls in 1848 and ended with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. But this overwhelmingly white women's movement did not win the vote for most black women. Securing their rights required a movement of their own.

In Vanguard, acclaimed historian Martha S. Jones offers a new history of African American women's political lives in America. She recounts how they defied both racism and sexism to fight for the ballot, and how they wielded political power to secure the equality and dignity of all persons. From the earliest days of the republic to the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and beyond, Jones excavates the lives and work of black women—Maria Stewart, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Fannie Lou Hamer, and more—who were the vanguard of women's