About the Book:Lunch and Learn returns with special guest Martha S. Jones in conversation with the Prince George's County Office of Human Rights and the Prince George's County Memorial Library System discu ssing her new book\, "The Trouble of Color: An American Family Memoir."
\nRegistration not required. Click on the YouTube video linked below to stream the program live or watch the recording later.\n
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About the Book:
An &ldquo\;intimate and searching&rdquo\; (Nat asha Trethewey\, \;New York Times&ndash\;bestselling author of \;M emorial Drive) memoir of family\, color\, and being Black\, white\, and ot her in America\, from &ldquo\;one of our country&rsquo\;s greatest histori ans&rdquo\; (Clint Smith\, #1 \;New York Times&ndash\;bestselling auth or of \;How the Word is Passed)
\nMartha S. Jones grew up feelin g her Black identity was obvious to all who saw her. But weeks into colleg e\, a Black Studies classmate challenged Jones&rsquo\;s right to speak. Su spicious of the color of her skin and the texture of her hair\, he confron ted her with a question that inspired a lifetime of introspection: &ldquo\ ;Who do you think you are?&rdquo\;
\nNow a prizewinning scholar of B lack history\, Jones delves into her family&rsquo\;s past for answers. In every generation since her great-great-great-grandmother survived enslavem ent to raise a free family\, color determined her ancestors&rsquo\; lives. But the color line was shifting and jagged\, not fixed and straight. Some backed away from it\, others skipped along it\, and others still were cut deep by its sharp teeth. \;
\nJourneying across centuries\, fro m rural Kentucky and small-town North Carolina to New York City and its su burbs\, "The Trouble of Color" is a lyrical\, deeply felt meditation on th e most fundamental matters of identity\, belonging\, and family.
\nF ind the book in our collection: Book | Ebook | Eaudiobook
\n~From the publisher \;
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About the author: \;
\n< p>Dr. Martha S. Jones is a writer\, historian\, legal scholar and public i ntellectual whose work aims to understanding the politics\, culture\, and poetics of Black America. She can be found at work in seminar rooms\, at p odiums\, in front of microphones\, and on the pages of books\, newspapers\ , Substack\, and social media. Her happy place is the archives where she n ever tires of the adventure of discovery. \;\nHer creative prac tice is rooted in the personal essay. Her latest book\, "The Trouble of Co lor: An American Family Memoir "(2025) recounts her family&rsquo\;s encoun ters with race and color through the story of five generations. You&rsquo\ ;ll recognize signs of a historian&rsquo\;s research skills\, but you will also discover how she felt about inheriting the troubles of the jagged co lor line &ndash\; from slavery and sexual violence through passing and col orism and on through civil rights and today&rsquo\;s &ldquo\;mixed-race&rd quo\; generation. Venues from CNN to the Michigan Quarterly Review and Cla udia Rankine&rsquo\;s Racial Imaginary Institute nurtured the stories that have taken full form in The Trouble of Color.
\nShe is the author o f prize-winning histories that survey the vast American past\, from slaver y and the founding\, the Civil War and Reconstruction\, women&rsquo\;s suf frage and Jim Crow\, on through modern Civil Rights and present day race a nd identity. Her 2020 book\, "Vanguard" chronicled a long struggle for the ballot that extended from the first Black women preachers on through the candidacy of Kamala Harris. "Birthright Citizens" (2018) told a new histor y of citizenship in the U.S. as the product of Black American activism\, l egal claims-making\, and persistence. Her work is grounded in women&rsquo\ ;s history\, including her foundational first two books\, co-edited "Towar d an Intellectual History of Black Women" (2015) and "All Bound Up Togethe r: The Woman Question in African American Public Culture: 1830 to 1900" (2 007).
\nHer by-line has appeared in the New York Times on culture an d travel\, including the widely-read &ldquo\;Enslaved to A Founding Father \, She Sought Freedom in France&rdquo\; about Abigail\, a woman held by th e family of John Jay. Her opinion columns have appeared in the Washington Post\, the Atlantic\, Politico\, Talking Points Memo\, and USA Today. You can also hear or see her via outlets such as NPR&rsquo\;s Here &\; Now and 1A\, CNN&rsquo\;s Amanpour\, and MSNBC&rsquo\;s the Rachel Maddow Show . Podcasts such as the Ezra Klein Show and the 19th*&rsquo\;s Amendment ha ve given her opportunities for long-form conversation.
\nBook prizes from the American Historical Association\, the Organization for American History\, the American Society for Legal History\, and the Los Angeles Tim es brought her writing to even broader audiences. Her research has been su pported by the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (Institute for Advance Study\ ,) the National Humanities Center\, the American Council of Learned Societ ies\, the Library of Congress Kluge Center\, and the American Historical A ssociation. She 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 honorar y fellow in 2024\, the society&rsquo\;s highest distinction.
\nBehin d the scenes\, her expertise supports media productions and cultural insti tutions. She has been an advisor and consultant to the Library of Congress \, the National Portrait Gallery\, the Smithsonian National Museum of Afri can American History and Culture\, the Obama Foundation\, the National Wom en&rsquo\;s History Museum\, and the U.S. Capital Historical Society. She has joined television and film productions\, in front of and behind the ca mera for Netflix\, Arte (France)\, and PBS American Experience. \;
\nAt Johns Hopkins University\, she teaches for the Department of Histo ry and the SNF Agora Institute. She directs the Hard Histories at Hopkins Project where her lab investigates the history of slavery and racism conne cted with Johns Hopkins University and Medicine. She has also taught and e ngaged with learners of many ages and stations thanks to organizations suc h as the National Constitution Center\, the Pulitzer Center\, the Zinn Edu cation Project\, the Gilder-Lehrman Institute\, and the Institute for Cons titutional History at New York Historical. She is indebted to the educator s in my own family\, and her teachers. At the CUNY School of Law\, she was trained by mentors such as Patricia Williams and Victor Goode\, and at Co lumbia University she studied under Eric Foner\, the late Manning Marable\ , and Alice Kessler-Harris.
\nHer parents\, a full decade before Lov ing v. Virginia\, married despite the threat of the color line. She was ba ptized in upper Manhattan&rsquo\;s Ascension Roman Catholic Church\, took my first steps on the sidewalks of \; Harlem&rsquo\;s Riverton\, and s tarted school in the Long Island suburb of Port Washington. She eventually returned to New York City\, a student at Hunter College and\, after law s chool as a store-front poverty lawyer battling for people facing homelessn ess\, mental illness\, and HIV/AIDS. A year as a Charles H. Revson Fellow on the Future of the City of New York let her see how she might mix social justice and academic research. That has been her purpose ever since.
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