The Trouble of Color: RPCS Welcomes Dr. Martha Jones for Annual Crane Lecture

The image shows a woman with short dark hair wearing glasses and a white sweater, holding a microphone and speaking in front of a bookshelf background.

Mar 31 2026

On March 30, Roland Park Country School was thrilled to welcome writer, historian, and legal scholar Martha S. Jones, Ph.D. as the special guest speaker for this year’s Sarah Crane Cohen Visiting Scholar in Humanities Lecture. A Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor and Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Jones’ work aims to understand the politics, culture, and poetics of Black America. She is the author of several books, including The Trouble of Color: An American Family Memoir, which recounts her family’s encounters with race and color through the story of five generations.

Dr. Jones spent the day meeting with our Middle and Upper School students. In her presentation to Middle School students, Dr. Jones provided a behind-the-scenes look of how everyday artifacts, including journals, photographs, conversations, letters from loved ones, and even a teacup, helped piece together the history of her family through multiple generations. “The ordinary objects in our homes become the gateways to memories,” she told the students. Dr. Jones explained how there are so many ways to define one’s identity and the items we save and collect in our lives can serve as raw materials that help us make sense of our own stories. In her presentation to Upper School students, she shared the personal journey that led to her writing the memoir and the complicated feelings she experienced as she began to receive more attention and acclaim for her work. In both student presentations, she fielded several thoughtful questions ranging from the inspiration for the title of her book to recognizing patterns in her own memories from that of her ancestors, and tips for coping when being misunderstood about race.

Before lunch, Dr. Jones led a moving and memorable creative writing workshop with the eighth graders in which they answered the prompt of “who do you think you are,” which was a defining moment in her own book. Immediately following the workshop, Dr. Jones met with multiracial students in the Middle School and Upper School Multiracial and Multicultural Affinity Group for a spirited lunch to learn more about their experiences. Students shared personal stories about their identities and family histories. They also asked Dr. Jones thoughtful questions about her work and lived experiences, finding similarities to their own lives.

In her evening lecture to the community, Dr. Jones spoke about how to consider what truly constitutes an “American family.” She shared the challenges her own family faced, starting in 1827, with similar themes emerging even 130 years later, including housing discrimination and social ostracization. “My own family tree is less like a ‘mighty oak’ - less orderly with more vines and brambles,” Dr. Jones told the audience. “Our complexities and our contradictions in our lifetimes have made me think a lot about what it means to choose, make and love your family, rather than adhere to conformity.” She encouraged the audience to consider their own shifting perspectives of the typical American family and share their own stories to better understand the nuances of all of our families. A book signing followed her evening lecture.

Dr. Jones is the author of prize-winning histories that survey the vast American past, from slavery and the founding, the Civil War and Reconstruction, women’s suffrage and Jim Crow, on through modern Civil Rights and present day race and identity, including Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All, and Birthright Citizens: A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America. For the New York Times, Dr. Jones has written on culture and travel; her opinion columns have appeared in the Washington Post, The Atlantic, Politico, Talking Points Memo, and USA Today, and she has been interviewed on NPR, CNN and MSNBC. Her work has enjoyed broad recognition, including book prizes from the American Historical Association, the Organization for American History, and the American Society for Legal History, among others. She was most recently awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

About the Sarah Crane Cohen Visiting Scholar in the Humanities Lecture

This endowment was established in 1993 by the late Charles Crane in memory of his mother. It is intended that the Sarah Crane Cohen Visiting Scholar shall be recognized for his/her accomplishments in any of several fields that comprise “the humanities.” This individual is selected from a culturally diverse background, which varies from scholar to scholar.