US concept of birthright largely shaped by free Black citizens in Baltimore

By Sheilah Kast,

Published February 3, 2025 at 10:04 AM EST

President Trump’s push to end “birthright citizenship” would rewrite what the Fourteenth amendment has meant since 1868. Scholar Martha S. Jones traces how free Blacks in Baltimore shaped and asserted the idea of birthright citizens before the Civil War. (Orig. broadcast, July, 2018)

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Sheilah Kast

Sheilah Kast is the host of On The Record, Monday-Friday, 9:30-10:00 am.

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Melissa Gerr

Melissa Gerr is a Senior Producer for On the Record. She started in public media at Twin Cities Public Television in St. Paul, Minn., where she is from, and then worked as a field producer for Oregon Public Broadcasting in Portland. She made the jump to audio-lover in Baltimore as a digital media editor at Mid-Atlantic Media and Laureate Education, Inc. and as a field producer for "Out of the Blocks." Her beat is typically the off-beat with an emphasis on science, culture and things that make you say, 'Wait, what?'

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