Birthright Citizens: How Black Americans Rewrote the US Constitution

Featuring Martha S. Jones, Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor and Professor of History at The Johns Hopkins University

In the decades before the Civil War, African American activists radically transformed the terms of citizenship for all Americans. Colonization schemes and black laws threatened to deport former slaves born in the United States leading African American activists to remake 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, 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. Fresh archival sources and an ambitious reframing of constitutional law-making reveal how, when the Fourteenth Amendment constitutionalized the birthright principle, black Americans' aspirations were realized.

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