During the 19th and 20th centuries, Black women played an active role in the struggle for universal suffrage. They participated in political meetings and organized political societies. African American women attended political conventions at their local churches where they planned strategies to gain the right to vote. In the late 1800s, more Black women worked for churches, newspapers, secondary schools, and colleges, which gave them a larger platform to promote their ideas.
But in spite of their hard work, many people didn’t listen to them. Black men and white women usually led civil rights organizations and set the agenda. They often excluded Black women from their organizations and activities. For example, the National American Woman Suffrage Association prevented Black women from attending their conventions. Black women often had to march separately from white women in suffrage parades. In addition, when Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony wrote the History of Woman Suffrage in the 1880s, they featured white suffragists while largely ignoring the contributions of African American suffragists. Though Black women are less well remembered, they played an important role in getting the Fifteenth and Nineteenth Amendments passed.
Reportedly, Black women found themselves pulled in two directions. Black men wanted their support in fighting racial discrimination and prejudice, while white women wanted them to help change the inferior status of women in American society. Both groups ignored the unique challenges that African American women faced. Black reformers like Mary Church Terrell, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, and Harriet Tubman understood that both their race and their sex affected their rights and opportunities.
Because of their unique position, Black women tended to focus on human rights and universal suffrage, rather than suffrage solely for African Americans or for women. Many Black suffragists weighed in on the debate over the Fifteenth Amendment, which would enfranchise Black men but not Black women. Mary Ann Shadd Cary spoke in support of the Fifteenth Amendment but was also critical of it as it did not give women the right to vote. Sojourner Truth argued that Black women would continue to face discrimination and prejudice unless their voices were uplifted like those of Black men.
This week, the What We Need to Know Newsletter honors Women’s History Month and the 61st Anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery March.
Every year, untold thousands of people make their sojourns to Selma, Alabama to commemorate the men, women, and children who braved state-sanctioned police violence as they attempted to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in peaceful demand for their right to vote.
When we think about the march that brought us the Voting Rights Act of 1965, we frequently think of civil rights giants like the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rep. John Lewis. But many forget the women who were integral to the Selma campaign and the civil rights movement in general.
This week, Black America 250 Spotlights : Marie Foster, Annie Lee Cooper, Amelia Boynton Robinson and Diane Nash