It’s an Election Year, and let’s face it, regardless of your
political leanings, it is clear that this year is going to be a rollercoaster
ride.
Because of my dual-citizenship, in the US and UK, I can vote in
both countries, and I take my civic duty to vote, in every election, very seriously. I am often the first person at my
polling station, or if necessary, I cast an Absentee Ballot. People literally
died for my right to vote, so how could I not exercise that right each time it is
extended to me?
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| President Woodrow Wilson Signing The 19th Amendment |
This year also marks the Centennial of The 19th Amendment being signed into law, by President Woodrow Wilson. Almost daily,
I see articles and social media posts about this exciting moment in history. Each
month, there are many celebrations planned, across the United States, to mark
this momentous occasion, ranging from lectures to art exhibits, and everything
in between. Click here for the calendar of events.
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| 2020 Rose Bowl Parade 'Suffragette' Marchers |
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| 2020 Rose Bowl Parade 'Suffragette' Marchers |
The celebrations were kicked off on New Year’s Day, during the Rose
Bowl Parade, with an award-winning float entitled Years of Hope. Years of Courage, and riding on it were descendants
of Suffragettes and Civil Rights leaders. Behind the float,
marched an extremely diverse group, including female politicians and
representatives from women’s organizations, including, for example, The National Council of Negro Women, Not our Native Daughters and The Junior League.
Watch their march coverage here:
I greatly appreciate how diverse this
group of women was, but what was not lost on observers and even some of the
marchers, such as Rep. Andi Clifford of Wyoming
, is the complicated relationship between The
Suffrage Movement, The 19th
Amendment, and women of color.
SO, WHAT IS THE 19TH
AMENDMENT?
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| The 19th Amendment |
The 19th Amendment
to the US Constitution, gave women,
in all 50 US states, the right to
vote. It was signed into law on August 26,
1920 (which is now marked as Women’s
Equality Day). Specifically, it prohibited denying anyone the right to vote
because of their gender. The text reads as follows: "The right of citizens
of the United States to vote shall
not be denied or abridged by the United
States or by any state on account of sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate
legislation."
A couple of key highlights about, and in, this Amendment, which are key to clarifying
history for those, who aren’t already aware:
1) ‘gave women, in all 50 states.’ Prior to August 1920, millions of women had
voted prior to The 19th
Amendment because The Constitution
gave individual states the right to decide who was granted the vote. Fifteen states, mostly in the Western US, gave women full voting
rights between 1869 and 1919. Those states were Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Michigan, Montana, Nevada,
New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.
Women in some other states had partial,
limited voting rights, before 1920.
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| Carrie Chapman Catt |
In fact, in early 1920, during the convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, The League of Women Voters was founded by Carrie Chapman Catt, just six months before The 19th Amendment was ratified.
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| Mary Louise Bottineau Baldwin, Native-American Rights Activist |
2) At the time that The 19th Amendment was signed into law, the word ‘citizens’ was key, because Asian, Pacific Islander, and Indigenous women did not have American citizenship, so were barred from voting for several years to come. Click here to see who could vote, when.
3) The other women, who did not fully benefit from The 19th Amendment, were African-Americans, because Southern states barred them from voting,
despite The 19th Amendment
covering all 50 states. This was done, literally denying them access to ballot
boxes by: physically assaulting them; fabricating crimes against them and
jailing them, if they tried to vote; making them wait in line up to twelve
hours to register to vote – thus jeopardizing their employment; imposing
expensive poll taxes; and making them take ‘literacy’ tests, where they had to
read and interpret The Constitution,
before being deemed eligible to vote – thus setting them up to fail.
A couple of examples: When African-American Birmingham, Alabama schoolteacher, Indiana Little,
attempted to register to vote, in 1926, White officials arrested her on charges
of vagrancy; and when Susie Fountain, of Phoebus,
Virginia, tried to take her state’s literacy test, the White registrar
handed her a blank sheet of paper. Unsurprisingly, she failed.
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| African-American Suffragettes |
However, this did not deter many Black women. They continued to show up en masse, across the South to challenge these daunting impediments. In some cases, they amazingly managed to vote.
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| Fighting for Voting Rights in the 1960s |
Decades of this
struggle meant that it wasn't until The Voting Rights Act was passed nearly a
half century later, on August 6, 1965, that all Black women were finally and officially allowed to exercise
their right to vote.
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| President Lyndon B. Johnson Signs The Voting Rights Act of 1965 |
THE NORTHERN, WESTERN & SOUTHERN STATES
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| Annie Simms Banks |
As aforementioned,
after The 19th Amendment
was signed, African-American Women
were able to vote in Northern and Western states, but not in the Southern
ones. One such woman was Annie Simms Banks, who was chosen to serve as
a delegate to Kentucky’s Republican Party
Convention, in March 1920.
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| African-American Women in the Early 1900s |
However, prior to 1920, the North and the West were not as open-minded. During the early 1900s, White Americans in both regions worked to “purify” the electorate of “problem
voters,” which largely meant immigrants and people of color. Numerous Northern and Western states expanded their residency requirements for voting, tightened
registration requirements, and shortened voter registration timeframes. Twelve Northern and Western states—from New York to California—also added literacy
tests to their state requirements for voting. Like those in the South, these tests were often selectively
administered against voters of color, including women. Yet because neither
“race” nor “sex” was mentioned in these laws, they were also
perfectly Constitutional. Once The 19th
Amendment passed, the Northern
and Western states stopped their
practices. However, the Southern
states strengthened their deterrents.
HOW & WHEN DID AFRICAN-AMERICAN WOMEN GET INVOLVED IN SUFFRAGE?
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| Early 1900s African-American Activists in Illinois |
In the Autumn of
1916, four years before The 19th
Amendment passed, African-American
women, in Chicago, were preparing to
cast their first, ever votes for President. The scenes in that year, of Black
women, many of whom were the daughters and granddaughters of former slaves,
exercising their right to vote, was simultaneously, not a big deal and a BIG deal. Theirs was a unique brand of
politics juxtaposed against both racism and sexism. African-American women had always had to make their own way, in
order to survive and thrive. In Chicago,
they secured a place at the polls by way of newly enacted Illinois state laws
that, over a ‘messy’ 25 years, extended the vote to all women in the state, regardless
of their race.
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| Julia Foote |
Their story actually begins in an unexpected (at the time)
place for Suffrage — the church. For Black women, church communities were
central to providing a haven for developing their sense of rights and how to
get organized for activism. No one understood this better than Julia Foote,
who became a preacher in the African
Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church, at the age of 18, in 1841. By the
1840s, Julia was a leader in a churchwomen’s movement, which demanded that
they, like men, should be entitled to occupy pulpits and interpret the
scriptures. In 1848, these women claimed triumph, when A.M.E. churchwomen won the right to preaching licenses. Black
churches would never be the same. That year launched a decades-long campaign in
which women lobbied for religious power, including: holding office, having
voting rights, and being able to control the funds that they raised for the
church.
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| Seneca Falls Convention Attendees, incl. Frederick Douglass |
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| Convenors of The Seneca Falls Convention |
This year of activism, by African-American women, coincided with The Seneca Falls Convention, which was held on July 19-20, 1848. Organized by Lucretia Coffin Mott, Martha Coffin Wright, Mary
Ann M'Clintock, Jane Hunt, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, this was considered to
be the first women's rights convention and billed itself as "a
convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of
women.” There, White American women gathered to make demands
upon the nation. They sought access to the ballot box, but they also shared the
aspirations of A.M.E.
churchwomen, and adopted the Declaration
of Sentiments, which called for equality between the sexes and included a
resolution urging women to secure the vote. The end of it demanded:
“that the speedy success of our cause depends upon the zealous and
untiring efforts of both men and women, for the overthrow of the monopoly of
the pulpit. . .”
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| Frederick Douglass, Elizabeth Stanton, Susan B. Anthony & Suffragists |
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| Declaration of Sentiments Section on Voting Rights |
A constant champion for women’s rights, abolitionist and
scholar, Frederick Douglass, was one of the few men and the only African-American, who attended The Seneca Falls Convention. It was
he who argued so convincingly for the inclusion of women’s right to vote,
and it was adopted into the Declaration
of Sentiments.
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| Sojourner Truth |
Following The Seneca Falls Convention, prominent, free African-American women abolitionists and suffragists attended,
spoke, and assumed leadership positions at multiple women’s rights gatherings, for
the next, two decades. In 1851, former slave, Sojourner Truth, delivered her
famous “Ain’t I a Woman” speech at the National
Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio. Watch Academy Award-winning actress, Cicely Tyson, recite Sojourner’s
speech, in 2009.
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| Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony |
It was also in
1851 when Elizabeth Cady Stanton met
women’s rights activist and abolitionist, Susan B. Anthony, and they became
lifelong friends (more on them, later).
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| Charles & Sarah Remond |
Other, notable, African-American
suffragists included Sarah Remond and her brother, Charles, who were widely
embraced for their pro–women suffrage speeches, at the 1858 National Woman’s Rights Convention in New York City. Some other (but
definitely not an exhaustive list) African-American
brothers and sisters-in-arms, included: Henrietta Purvis, Margaretta Forten, Charlotte
Forten, Harriet Forten Purvis, Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, Robert Purvis, Mary
Church Terrell, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Fannie Barrier Williams, Gertrude
Bustill Mossell, Charlotte (“Lottie”) Rollin,
Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Angelina Weld Grimké, Adella
Hunt Logan, Mary McCurdy, and Janie Porter Barrett and Mary Ann
Shadd Cary.
To learn more about notable, African-American Suffragists, this documentary, The Black Suffragist, is currently in
post-production. I can’t wait to watch the entire film. Learn more about its
protagonists here.
Watch The Documentary's Trailer here.
From the
earliest years of the Suffrage Movement,
African-American women worked side by
side with white suffragists. However, by the late Nineteenth Century, the Movement
began to experience tension over the issue of race, in the years after The Civil War. So, African-American women formed their own organizations to continue
their efforts, such as: The
Interracial Philadelphia Suffrage Association, and The National Association of Colored Women (NACW).
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| Lucretia Mott |
Another organization, The American Equal Rights Association
(AERA), was an organization formed by former abolitionists and women’s
rights advocates that endorsed both women’s and Black men’s right to vote. While
very focused on African-Americans’
rights, white abolitionist, Lucretia Mott, was its founding president.
RACIAL TENSIONS EMERGE
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| The 15th Amendment in Action |
For some time, Black and White people worked well together in the Suffrage Movement, but with the proposal of The 15th Amendment, which would enfranchise Black men, but not women, interracial and mixed-gender coalitions began to deteriorate. The 1870 15th Amendment to The Constitution “prohibits the federal government, and each state, from denying a citizen the right to vote, based on that citizen's race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”
Suffragists began having to
choose between insisting on universal rights or accepting the priority of Black
male suffrage. The split in the Suffrage
Movement over The 15th
Amendment prompted Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony to sever
ties with the AERA and form the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA),
which promoted universal suffrage, insisting that Black men should not receive
the vote before White women.
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| An Imagined, Racist Depiction of The 15th Amendment in Action |
Tempers flared, and Elizabeth and Susan made racist remarks.
Stanton embraced fairness in the abstract, while publicly enunciating bigoted
views of African-American men, whom
she characterized as “Sambos” and incipient rapists, in the period just after The Civil War. Not only would (to her
mind) unfit freedmen be allowed to vote, she warned, but immigrant men too,
increasing the ranks of “incompetent” voters to epidemic proportions. She
railed against “ignorant” Black manhood voting before “educated” White
womanhood. Susan backed up Elizabeth,
saying that, “If the vote were to be given ‘piece by piece,’ then give it first
to women, who are the most intelligent & capable.” – clearly meaning
native-born White women were superior to Black men.
All of this,
unsurprisingly, intensely angered Black suffragists, and they began branching
out more on their own. Black women
attended and spoke out at political and religious meetings and public
rallies. Their enthusiasm and political engagement within and outside
suffrage campaigns was particularly concerning to Whites in the post-Civil War South.
Despite all of the important work
by African-American suffragists, the
mainstream Suffrage Movement
continued its racially discriminatory practices and even condoned white
supremacist ideologies, in order to garner Southern
support for white women’s voting rights. Consequently, African-American women and men became increasingly marginalized and
discriminated against at women’s suffrage meetings, campaigns, and marches.
TENSIONS EASE…SOMEWHAT
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| Declaration of Women's Rights |
However, over time, tensions
between Elizabeth, Susan, and Frederick subsided. In
1876, Mary Ann Shadd Cary wrote to leaders of NAWSA, urging them to place the names of ninety-four Washington,
DC, Black women suffragists on their Declaration
of the Rights of the Women of the United States issued on the one-hundredth
anniversary of American Independence,
which concluded, “we ask justice, we ask equality, we ask that all the civil
and political rights that belong to citizens of the United States, be guaranteed to us and our daughters forever.”
While unsuccessful in having their names added, Mary remained a committed
suffrage activist, speaking at the 1878 NWSA
meeting. Two years later, she formed the Colored
Woman’s Franchise Association in Washington,
DC, which linked suffrage, not just to political rights, but also to education
and labor issues.
In April 1888, in a speech before the International Council of Women, in Washington, DC, Frederick Douglass recalled his role at The Seneca
Falls Convention. The full
text of his speech is here.
However, even after the NWSA and the AWSA reconciled to form the National
American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA,) in 1890, Susan and other White
suffragists, in the South and the North, continued to prioritize
expediency over loyalty and justice, where African-American
suffragists were concerned. In 1895, Susan B. Anthony asked Frederick Douglass not to attend the upcoming NAWSA convention, in Atlanta, because she worried that his
presence on the stage, with the honored guests, would have offended the Southern hosts. Other Black suffragists
reprimanded Susan and her fellow, White activists for giving in to racial
prejudice.
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| Mary Church Terrell |
In the closing decades of the Nineteenth
Century more Black women formed their own local and regional woman suffrage
clubs and, in 1896, The aforementioned NACW,
which elected Mary Church Terrell as it first national president, provided
Black women a national platform to advocate for woman suffrage and women’s
rights causes. From the organization’s launch and throughout the Twentieth Century, Mary and numerous NACW members and leaders fought for
woman suffrage, sharing their pro-suffrage sentiments and activities at
regional and national NACW conventions
and in the White and Black press.
During the 1903 NAWSA meeting in New Orleans, the Times Democrat denounced
the organization’s anti-Black states’ rights strategy for its negative impact
on Black women’s quest for suffrage.
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Despite the discrimination Black women experienced, they cautiously
joined interracial efforts to secure voting rights for women and to expand
women’s engagement in electoral politics, while also continuing to form their
own organizations. In 1913, prominent activist, NACW member, and suffragist, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, organized the
first Black woman suffrage club, in Chicago, The Alpha Suffrage Club.
THE WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE MARCH OF 1913
Also, in 1913, Alice Paul, founder of the National Woman’s Party, organized a women’s suffrage parade, scheduled a day before the inauguration of Woodrow Wilson, the first US President from the South.
History cites that African-American women were forced to march at the back of the 1913
parade. This is technically untrue. In fact, Alice Paul originally did ask the Black women to march at the back, after making it very difficult for them to register, in the first place. However, after floods of protest communiqués were received, including from the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Alice relented, and several dozen Black women participated in the
1913 parade, marching in various state, education, and occupation delegations,
in all positions of the parade. This information is verified in the NAACP’s April 1913 edition of it publication, The Crisis.
Ida B. Wells-Barnett, marching with others from
Illinois, was the most famous, African-American marcher. Also, in addition to Howard University Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority members, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority members also marched with the college
delegation. Read more here.
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| African-American Suffragettes |
However, all was not harmonious, yet, between the races. In the years between the 1913
Suffrage March and the ratification of The
19th Amendment, the alienation of ethnic, female suffragists
only worsened. White women eventually realized that relying on racial exclusion
would be the only way to get Southern
states to ratify The 19th Amendment
– and they desperately needed those states. To add insult to injury,
not only did White suffragists exclude people of color from their Movement, early recounting of the
significant contributions made by people of color, was literally ‘whitewashed,’
rendering them virtually invisible.
These courageous, tenacious
women are finally being given their
due. One example: The National Portrait
Gallery, in its exhibit celebrating The
19th Amendment’s Centennial, has given long-overdue attention to
the lives and work of these women. Click here to view.
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| Dr. Rosalyn Terborg-Penn |
Also, recently deceased, Dr. Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, a former professor
at Morgan State University and
best known for her exhaustive work on the history of Black women in the American suffragist movement, wrote an
excellent book: African-American Women on
the Struggle for the Vote, 1850-1920. It meticulously shines a light on the unrecognized
and erased role of African-American
suffragettes.
BLACK WOMEN ARE CRUCIAL TO ELECTIONS
African-American women’s
post-1920 political life shows that, rather than being defeated, The 19th
Amendment, was a launching pad for their involvement in electoral politics, in
the coming years.
Oscar De Priest actually credited
Black women with being the deciding factor in his election, in 1928, as the
first African-American elected to the United States House of Representatives, since
Reconstruction.
Fast
forward to present day, and Black women continue to be crucial. They even
brought Democrat, Doug Jones, to victory, winning a special election 2017 Senate
seat, in ultra-conservative Alabama. 98% of Black women voted for him.
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| Congresswomen Celebrating The Centennial of The 19th Amendment Passing in The House & Senate |
African-American women aren’t just voting and delivering.
We’re running for office, and we’re winning. The 2018 Congressional Elections
saw the most diverse, incoming class, and African-American women comprised a notable
portion of that group. However, we still have work to do. Black women represent
4.1% of the US House and Senate, but ~8% of the US population.
After Black women delivered some notable advances for
Democrats, during last year’s midterm elections, they have emerged as a key
voting bloc, as we head toward the 2020 Presidential race. UPDATE AUGUST 2020: We expect this voting bloc to be even larger and more powerful, now that Senator Kamala Harris has been chosen to join, as the Vice-Presidential candidate, Joe Biden's bid for The White House.
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| Republicans Will Hurd, Tim Scott & Mia Love |
To be equitable, there is a small percentage of Black, female registered Republicans,
and six of them ran for Congress, in 2018. Unfortunately, none of them won, so there are currently, no Black, female Republicans, in neither The House nor The Senate. The GOP has a lot of work to do (if it so desires) to embrace African-American
voters and candidates, and be relevant to their values and issues. When
African-American Texas Republican Congressman, Will Hurd, retires, this year,
South Carolina Senator Tim Scott will be the only African-American Republican left in all of Congress.
Black women stand out as a demographic group with one of the
largest voter turnouts. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that 55% of eligible Black, women voters cast ballots in November 2018, a full six percentage points
above the national turnout.
“At least one political expert says that the presidential
candidates will need to demonstrate a commitment to issues important to this
group if they want their party’s nomination. Among those issues: equal pay and
maternal health, says Aimee Allison, founder and president of She the People, a group seeking to
ensure Black women are part of the national political conversation.”
All of the media pundits and political analysts will tell
you that the road to The White House will not happen for any candidate who does
not see the value and power that African-American women hold. In fact, 95% of black women plan to vote in the 2020 Elections.
I am so very grateful for all of the suffragists and Suffragettes, throughout the decades,
but am especially proud of my African-American
sisters, because they faced even greater challenges to secure the right to vote.
Thank you, ladies!
We recognize our strength, and we will use it to progress, not
only ourselves and our families, but also, our entire country, which is
currently pretty great, despite its bumps and bruises.
As an African-American woman, who now lives in a State that
did not allow someone like myself to vote until 45 years after The 19th Amendment was adopted, I know
that I must be a role model for young women, especially, so that they can
affect the change they want to see in their lives.
Sources: National Park Service, Fortune, Wikipedia, Google Images, 2020Centennial.org, Southern Poverty Law Center, NY Times, NY Heritage, The
Black Suffragist Documentary, National Archives, National Endowment for the Humanities, Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture, Library of Congress, Washington Post, Smithsonian Magazine, K. Wiita, KTLA
