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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

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