Keeping His Torch Forever Burning: ASALH Presidents 1916-1951

Edna B. McKenzie ASALH Branch: 2021 Founders Day Program

September 11 | 1 PM ET | Zoom

Ida E. Jones, PhD
University Archivist at Morgan State University

Dr. Ida E. Jones is a native New Englander. She graduated with a B.A. in News Editorial Journalism, M.A. in Public History, and a PhD in American History from Howard University.

Keeping His Torch Forever Burning: ASALH Presidents 1916-1951 is presented as celebration of ASALH’s Annual Founder’s Day to honor Dr. Carter G. Woodson, the Father of Black History. Follow the lineage of ASALH presidents who have kept the torch burning while understanding the importance of passing a burning torch to future generations.

Dr. Ida E. Jones is the University Archivist at Morgan State University. She administers the Beulah M. Davis Room which houses the university archives along special collections of rare books and manuscript collections. While not a Morgan she is adjunct faculty at Lancaster Bible College. She is a newly appointed Board member of the Maryland Women’s Heritage Center, as well as, a Board member of the National Collaborative of Women’s History sites. She is serving her second year as co-vice president of the Baltimore City Historical Society.

Scholarship is evident in numerous publications, speaking engagements, as well as radio and television appearances. Publications include four books, a variety of encyclopedia entries and an online exhibition. Her most recent work Baltimore Civil Rights Leader Victorine Q. Adams the Power of the Ballot. This is the first biography of Councilwoman Adams, the first African American woman elected to the Baltimore City Council. Finally, Dr. Jones is a consummate scholar who believes deeply in the words of Mrs. Mary McLeod Bethune who stated “power must walk hand in hand with humility and the intellect must have a soul.”

She self-published her first book in 2011, The Heart of the Race Problem: the Life of Kelly Miller. This was the first published biography on Kelly Miller. She utilizes the daysman, a Biblical mediator to situate the intellectual life of Miller. His ideology sought to harmonize the divergent perspectives of Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois.