#TeachReconstruction uncpress.org/freedom-was-... Great way to finish out the year! @katemasur.bsky.social

Historian @katemasur.bsky.social on the Trump admin's attacks on birthright citizenship: "Efforts to undermine birthright citizenship" are "almost always highly political and driven by anti-immigrant sentiment, not by any legitimate understanding of the 14th Amendment." (For more on Kate's work ⬇️)

Just so everyone knows, the Solicitor General straight up lied about the 1921 law review article he kept talking about. quick thread:

Relevant today: Historians @marthasjones.bsky.social & @katemasur.bsky.social (from our Teach Black Freedom Struggle series) filed amicus brief challenging an EO undermining birthright citizenship. Brief is a great resource for students on the 14th Amendment. www.zinnedproject.org/news/amicus-...

Teachers: Check out this summer institute on Reconstruction -- the Second Founding. Spend a week at the National Museum of African American History and Culture and at historic sites in DC area with historian @katemasur.bsky.social and others. Apply by 4/15. nmaahc.si.edu/events/freed...

Excellent essay by @marthasjones.bsky.social and @katemasur.bsky.social on the history of the birthright citizenship clause—with a reference to Douglass’s brilliant composite nation speech delivered in Boston in 1869

I love a headline that gets right to the point (You can read @marthasjones.bsky.social and @katemasur.bsky.social’s full op-ed here: www.nytimes.com/2026/03/30/o...)

@katemasur.bsky.social and @marthasjones.bsky.social explain it all in clear and concise terms. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/30/o...

The historical conversation surrounding birthright citizenship is very clear as noted by @marthasjones.bsky.social and @katemasur.bsky.social There is no debate warranted. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/30/o...

“From the start, birthright citizenship was understood as a vehicle by which ‘all persons’ born” in the United States, write Martha S. Jones and Kate Masur, “would become full members of a newly remade democracy.”

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear arguments about birthright citizenship. Here, for the NYTimes and with Kate Masur, I offer a view of what those of you who think historically should be listening for. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/30/o...

"However the court decides, history shows that Mr. Trump is wrong," write @marthasjones.bsky.social & Historians Council Member @katemasur.bsky.social in @nytimes.com ahead of oral arguments in the SCOTUS case challenging Pres. Trump’s birthright citizenship order.

For more from @katemasur.bsky.social and @marthasjones.bsky.social, check out their brief, detailing the long struggle for a broad and inclusive guarantee of birthright citizenship undertaken by free Black Americans before the Civil War. The Constitution instantiates that guarantee.

MUST READ (gift link). From historians @katemasur.bsky.social & @marthasjones.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2026/03/30/o...

Trump is flat wrong when he claims that birthright citizenship was intended only for the "babies of slaves." Martha Jones and I have the receipts. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/30/o...

Trump is flat wrong when he claims that birthright citizenship was intended only for the "babies of slaves." Martha Jones and I have the receipts. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/30/o...

The Supreme Court's oral argument on birthright citizenship will kick off at 10 AM Eastern this Wednesday, April 1. You can (and should) listen live via the SCOTUS website: www.supremecourt.gov. In the interim, a 🧵⬇️ with some resources to get you ready... @brennancenter.org

The Trump administration's attacks on birthright citizenship are based on the same flawed thinking as the Supreme Court's infamous and long-ago-rejected opinion in Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857). Historians @katemasur.bsky.social and @marthasjones.bsky.social explain:

Why is protecting a universal birthright citizenship principle so critical? Historians @marthasjones.bsky.social and @katemasur.bsky.social shed light on one answer with the words of Abraham Lincoln:

Ahead of next week's Supreme Court oral argument on birthright citizenship, get up to speed on the relevant history via this @brennancenter.org roundtable with historians @katemasur.bsky.social, @marthasjones.bsky.social, and Erika Lee (along with yours truly) www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QCI...

👀👀👀👀 check out this journal article workshop opportunity!

The @richardscenter.bsky.social and @jcwe.bsky.social announce a journal article workshop for advanced graduate students, recent PhDs, assistant professors, and independent scholars. Application materials should be sent to [email protected] by April 15, 2026!

If you are an advanced graduate student, recent PhD, assistant professor, or independent scholar with a Civil War Era research topic, please consider applying for this workshop.

In today's Muster, JCWE Book Review Editor Megan Bever talks with Maria Angela Diaz about her book Continuous State of War, published in 2004 by UGA Press www.journalofthecivilwarera.org/2026/03/jcwe...

If you study legal history, please consider submitting a proposal for the 2026 conference of the American Society for Legal History in Banff, Canada in November! The Program Committee accepts proposals until March 24! #ASLH #legalhistory 🗃️ aslh.net/2026-annual-...

As @marthasjones.bsky.social and @katemasur.bsky.social explain in their new amicus brief, the Constitution's birthright citizenship guarantee is universalistic www.brennancenter.org/media/15301/...

Trump has repeatedly claimed that the Constitution's grant of birthright citizenship was limited to "newly freed slaves and their children." This 🧵⬇️from @sam-breidbart.bsky.social explains how the amicus brief from @marthasjones.bsky.social and @katemasur.bsky.social demolishes that argument...

"The framers [of the 14th Amendment] constitutionalized the universal view of birthright citizenship that free Black Americans advanced and the common law guaranteed." @marthasjones.bsky.social and @katemasur.bsky.social provide a powerful history lesson in the form of a legal brief

1/ @marthasjones.bsky.social and @katemasur.bsky.social have drafted a seminal brief: (a) that centers Black American beliefs on birthright citizenship and (b) uses a set of primary sources, such as speeches and Colored Conventions, fought for (and won) broad birthright citizenship for everyone.

NEW: Profs. Martha Jones and @brennancenter.org Historians Council Member Kate Masur filed an amicus brief in the upcoming Supreme Court case involving Trump’s attempt to unconstitutionally strip birthright citizenship 🧵

Today @marthasjones.bsky.social & Historians Council Member @katemasur.bsky.social filed a brief in the SCOTUS case challenging President Trump’s birthright citizenship order. Jones and Masur debunk the claim the 14th Amendment applies only to “newly freed slaves.”

Powerful new SCOTUS brief from the lawyers defending birthright citizenship (@aclu.org @legaldefensefund.bsky.social @asianlawcaucus.org @democracydefendersfund.org) As they lay out, Trump's EO is nothing less than an attempt to rewrite the Constitution. 👀➡️ www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/25...

Holy cow, what a lineup. Check out this special issue:

Honored to be part of this special issue! My essay, "Empathy, Humility, and Good Faith: Studying History in Times of Crisis," explores the ways I have been thinking about this question both as a historian and teacher, and as Josie's mom and advocate: muse.jhu.edu/pub/12/artic....

What Is To Be Done? Historians of Crisis in a Moment of Crisis a special Issue of @jcwe.bsky.social is available to READ FOR FREE now on @projectmuse.bsky.social. 18 Civil War–era historians reflect on scholarship, teaching & today’s political crisis. Read it now👇 muse.jhu.edu/journal/516

Now available for free! Please check out this important special issue. Now more than ever, the Civil War era provides us with important lessons for our harrowing current moment

Don't Delay -- Apply TODAY for one of the 2026-2027 Predoctoral Fellowships! Deadline for submitting application packet is March 1, 2026! Please help share this amazing opportunity to be a part of the Richards Center Community!! richardscenter.la.psu.edu/fellowships/...

@jamellebouie.net A terrific explanation of the institutional power of slavery before the civil war, but also the power of individual choice in combatting it. Great job analyzing the historical scholarship, but also calling out books by @katemasur.bsky.social & @profmsinha.bsky.social

My friend @gowder.io and his colleagues are brilliant and unflinching here. I’m sorry to be late to it but this is an outstanding piece of critical analysis that has lessons well beyond the current debate over birthright citizenship. publications.lawschool.cornell.edu/lawreview/20...

Historians @marthasjones.bsky.social and @katemasur.bsky.social filed a critical brief on birthright citizenship in the circuit courts, showing how the story of free Black Americans' advocacy unravels the admin's lead justification for its executive order. www.brennancenter.org/media/14006/...

Birthright citizenship has been a core constitutional guarantee for ages. If you're just tuning into the discourse now, check out our panel with expert historians @marthasjones.bsky.social @katemasur.bsky.social and Erika Lee: www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QCI... @brennancenter.org

With news that NPS is implementing an EO by deleting info about slavery and climate change, I thought I'd share this article, where Greg Downs & I describe our experience w/NPS's commitment to good history. This is precisely what the admin is trying to destroy. www.historians.org/perspectives...

With news that NPS is implementing an EO by deleting info about slavery and climate change, I thought I'd share this article, where Greg Downs & I describe our experience w/NPS's commitment to good history. This is precisely what the admin is trying to destroy. www.historians.org/perspectives...

Look at this: @inquirer.com has digitally preserved the interpretative signage removed by NPS, and used annotations to explain what specifically was flagged before removal. This keeps the content publicly accessible (for now) while doing newsworthy reporting www.inquirer.com/news/philade...

Here’s a great piece on @netflix.com’s series “Death by Lightning” by the outstanding Historian and National Park Ranger @richcondon.bsky.social. He’s kind enough to mention my name and cite my book in this review of the series for @scwhistorians.bsky.social’s Journal of the Civil War Era.

I'm sure Bouie has read this, but for those interested in the kinds of details this testimony revealed, I strongly recommend: Kidada E. Williams, I Saw Death Coming: A History of Terror and Survival in the War Against Reconstruction (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2023).

Kate Masur and Greg Downs break it down. A must-read. Jan. 6 and the Long Shadow of Civil War- and Reconstruction-Era Political Violence talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/jan-6-a...