Martha S. Jones

Prof. Martha S. Jones is a member of the Law School's Affiliated LSA Faculty and associate professor of history and associate chair of U-M's Department of Afroamerican and African Studies. She is codirector of the Michigan Law Program in Race, Law & History. She holds a PhD in history from Columbia University and a JD from the CUNY School of Law. Prior to joining the Michigan faculty, she was a public interest litigator for the HIV Law Project and MFY Legal Services, where her work focused on the rights of people with disabilities. In 1994, she was a Charles H. Revson Fellow on the Future of the City of New York at Columbia University in recognition of her lawyering work. Her scholarly interests include the histories of race, citizenship, and slavery. Prof. Jones is the author of numerous articles and essays and the critically acclaimed All Bound Up Together: The Woman Question in African American Public Culture, 1830-1900 (The University of North Carolina Press, 2007). Her current projects include two books: Birthright Citizens: A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America and Toward an Intellectual History of Black Women. Prof. Jones has received broad support and recognition for her work. At times, that recognition has come in the form of research grants and writing fellowships. In 2013-2014, her work was supported by the American Council of Learned Societies and the National Humanities Center, where she was the William C. and Ida Friday Fellow. She also has held fellowships from the Columbia University Center for the Critical Analysis of Social Difference, University of Pennsylvania Law School, National Constitution Center, Organization of American Historians, Library Company of Philadelphia, and Gilder-Lehrman Institute of American History. In 2010, Prof. Jones was selected as a Distinguished Lecturer with the Organization of American Historians. In 2011 and 2013, respectively, the University of Michigan honored her with the Harold R. Johnson Diversity Service Award and an Arthur F. Thurnau Professorship.