Xernona Clayton and Martha S. Jones Discuss Civil Rights

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Martha S. Jones, you have written, obviously, this great book “Vanguard” about essentially how black women’s contribution to not just equal voting rights but equality in general is too often overlooked and how this young woman, activist, you know, is saying, don’t take us for granted. Don’t just count on us. How do you react to what she said?

MARTHA S. JONES, AUTHOR, “VANGUARD”: I think she’s speaking a refrain that black women have been speaking for generations. It is a lonely place to occupy in an American democracy when you are, as she so eloquently put it, the backbone of a party, when you are, as I have put it, the vanguard of American politics speaking this country’s best ideals, holding this country up to its best ideals and yet, yes, too often overlooked when it comes to setting policy, to sharing power and to really driving the course of American politics. It’s an old frustration.

AMANPOUR: Let’s just point out the obvious that Joe Biden has chosen, you know, a black American woman, black Indian-American woman, Kamala Harris, to be his running mate, and we have some 122 black or multi-racial black women filed to run for congressional seats in this year’s election. That really does seem to be progress. Xernona, what do you make of that, the numbers that are increasing, the representation on the vice-presidential ticket and yet, still some frustration at the grass roots?

XERNONA CLAYTON, CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST: Well, one thing we realize is that we can overlook when it comes to qualifications, talent, ability. We have to reach a point where we’ve got to overlook this thing called race, the color of a person’s skin. None of us chose to be who we are and what we look like. And so, to hide behind it, to ignore it or to make it an issue, all of these are mistakes we make as citizens that there’s talent, ability, energy and skill that comes in all colors. And I’m just so happy that we have come to a point now where we’re kind of confusing what were the original decisions and the issues of the Declaration of Independence, that we’re all created equal. And now, we’re coming closer to equality, and the choices that we are making now with getting women in the right places, doing the right things I think is progress, and I’m happy to see it.