Jones is the Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor and a professor of history at The Johns Hopkins University. She is a legal and cultural historian whose work examines how Black Americans have shaped the story of American democracy. Jones is the author of Birthright Citizens: A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America, winner of the Organization of American Historians Liberty Legacy Award for the best book in civil rights history, the American Historical Association Littleton-Griswold Prize for the best book in American legal history and the American Society for Legal History John Phillip Reid book award for the best book in Anglo-American legal history. Forthcoming in 2020 is Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Fought for Rights for All. Jones is also author of All Bound Up Together: The Woman Question in African American Public Culture 1830-1900 and a coeditor of Toward an Intellectual History of Black Women. She is at work on a biography of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney. Jones is recognized as a public historian, frequently writing for broader audiences at outlets including the Washington Post, the Atlantic, USA Today, Public Books, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and Time. Jones is also noted for the curatorship of museum exhibitions including “Reframing the Color Line” and “Proclaiming Emancipation” in conjunction with the William L. Clements Library, and collaborations with the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, the Charles Wright Museum of African American History, the American Experience, the Southern Poverty Law Center, PBS, Netflix, and Arte (France.) [JR1]
Jones holds a Ph.D. in history from Columbia University and a J.D. from the CUNY School of Law. Prior to the start of her academic career, she was a public interest litigator in New York City, recognized for her work as a Charles H. Revson Fellow on the Future of the City of New York at Columbia University. Jones currently serves as president of the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians and on the executive board of the Organization of American Historians.
