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The Michigan Daily (ISSN 0745-967) is 
published every Thursday during the 
spring and summer terms by students 
at the University of Michigan. One copy 
is available free of charge to all readers. 
Additional copies may be picked up at the 
Daily’s office for $2. Subscriptions for fall 
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2

Thursday, May 25, 2017
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
NEWS

Longtime law professor Martha Jones 
reflects on her 15 years at University

Jones to relocate 
to Johns Hopkins 
after influential 
tenure at U-M

By RIYAH BASHA

Daily News Editor

In 
her 
15 
years 
at 
the 

University of Michigan, History 
Prof. Martha Jones has invested 
much of herself into the campus 
community — and the return 
has not disappointed. As a 
co-director of the Law School’s 
program in Race, Law and 
History, former associate chair of 
the Department of Afroamerican 
and African Studies and, most 
recently this winter, her work 
as a Presidential Bicentennial 
professor with the landmark 
Stumbling 
Blocks 
exhibit 
— 

Jones has become somewhat of 
a stalwart in convening campus 
around issues of race and social 
justice.

Jones arrived in Ann Arbor 

the day before 9/11, and — from 
the 
battle 
over 
affirmative 

action and Proposal 2 to Obama 
to Trump to the University’s 
contentious 
celebration 
of 

its 200th year — took part in 
molding the University in the 
years thereafter. This summer, 
though, Jones will relocate to 
Baltimore to join the history 
department at Johns Hopkins 
University. She joined the Daily 
for an exit interview of sorts, 
to reflect on her career at the 
University and the lessons she’s 
taken from this year, and decade, 
of powerful turbulence.

TMD: You’re leaving us! Is the 

move to Baltimore for research 
on your new book, a change of 
scene, or both?

MJ: 16 years is a long time to 

be someplace. The opportunities 
to be closer to my archives was 
really exciting, to have those 
things at my fingertips…. you 
can imagine Baltimore presents 
the kinds of opportunities and 
challenges similar to a city 
like Detroit. In a lot of ways 
at Michigan, I had — at least 
personally — accomplished a 
lot of the things I had hoped to 
accomplish, and more. It seemed 
like the right moment to think 

about a change.

TMD: Your Stumbling Blocks 

exhibit really took ahold of 
campus this semester, and it was 
so interesting to watch those 
conversations 
unfold. 
What 

reactions did you find most 
compelling?

MJ: Wow, after 18 months of 

planning and thinking, it was all 
very compelling. We were really 

lucky that the Sunday we set up 
Stumbling Blocks was warm and 
beautiful, and so while I thought 
we’d just be setting up, I had a 

chance to talk with people very 
informally.

The first people I talked to 

were a mother from Chicago 
and her daughter, a Michigan 
student, 
and 
her 
younger 

daughter, who was thinking 
about 
college. 
They 
were 

African 
American, 
and 
we 

stood together in front of the 
chairs to talk about the history, 
the meaning of the chairs, 
what it’s like to be a student of 
color at Michigan. I watched 
one of my former students, 
who does tours for visitors 
and 
prospectives, 
give 
his 

spiel on the steps of the Union, 
and incorporate the sign on 
the front of the Union into 
students’ first introduction to 
the University.

What we hoped for was just 

that, that people just slow down 
in places like the Diag, Ingalls 
Mall, the Union and stop, read, 
talk, look and look again.

Some people won’t know 

how much goes on behind 
the scenes in order to create 
an 
installation 
like 
this. 

Memorable moments are the 
first night when it rained cats 

and dogs and the power went out 
on the exterior of the Union, and 
there was a team that worked 
with me in the mud getting the 
power back up. I knew I’d be out 
there, but the staff was out there, 
too.

The last category, of course, is 

criticism. I learned a lot myself as 
a thinker, community member, a 
creative person about hanging in 
there for the hard conversations. 
The ones I was a party to were 
emblematic of our capacity to 
have hard conversations when 
we commit to them. And we walk 
away understanding each other 
better and building relationships 
that, I hope, bear fruit. Some 
people didn’t want them to ever 
come down, and I think the pop-
up is important to show the real 
work isn’t in installations on the 
Diag. I think it was right to do 
it for a week and let it generate 
thought, be provocative and then 
send us back to do the work we 
do every day.

TMD: The pop-up provided 

space 
for 
conversations 
and 

pause in a year where it seemed 
like we didn’t really have time 
to stop, where it felt like campus 
was always moving — especially 
after a year of multiple racist 
incidents. How is it that those 
singular, incendiary moments 
can take hold of an entire 
campus? What are your overall 
reflections on this year?

MJ: This work on climate 

requires making a lot of noise, 
all the time. I think the reason 
that we survived this year was 
because people stepped up from 
all kinds of corners of campus 
and made a lot of noise, in a year 
where a lot of other institutions 
haven’t fared as well. That 
noise functioned in a way that 
was bigger than any one poster 
campaign or rally or pop-up. It 
was all of those things happening 
at once. An Expect Respect 
campaign was just a piece, but 
it was one piece of everything 
else, 
the 
counter-postering, 

the rallies around urgency and 
emergency. That’s not to say that 
we’ve reached the goal or solved 
all our concerns, but if it were my 
project for the future, I would 
be about continuing that noise. 

UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR MARTHA JONES 

COURTESY OF MARTHA JONES/Daily 

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

