Votes for (Some) Women: How the Suffrage Movement

Votes for (Some) Women: How the Suffrage Movement Left Black Citizens Out

By NEENA ARNDT Originally printed in PlayBill and Onstage+

A poster parade organized by the Women's Freedom League in 1907. Courtesy of the Museum of London.. It may seem clear to most late 19th century and into the suffrage for the civic-minded 21st century Americans that 20th. Rather than advocating citizen, as activists initiated the all adult citizens should have for voting rights for all adult United States’ centuries-long the right to vote, but 19th and Americans, Stanton argued transformation from a country even 20th century activists that “we educated, virtuous that categorically privileged often advocated for their white women are more white men above all others own group while ignoring the worthy of the vote.” to a more egalitarian nation. rights of people who were But suffragists splintered over unlike them. While meeting The racism of Stanton and whether to support the 15th with Frederick Douglass in other activists was amplified amendment, which granted 1866, women’s rights activist by a sense, after slavery’s voting rights to Black men. Elizabeth Cady Stanton end, that either women or Wendell Phillips, president remarked that she would “cut Black men could gain the of the American Anti-Slavery off this right arm of mine” right to vote, but not both. Society, famously referred to before she ever fought for Earlier in the century, Black this post-slavery period as “the voting rights for Black people and white women had Negro’s hour” for voting rights. and not women. With this sometimes worked side by Much of the writing from this statement, Stanton—long side; as early as the 1830s, period assumes “Black” to be enshrined as a heroic figure cities like Boston, New York male and “woman” to be white, in the suffrage movement— and Philadelphia all had so Phillips’ declaration implies disregarded that half of female anti-slavery societies, that white women will have to Black people are women and in which diverse groups wait their turn and leaves Black summarized an attitude that of women expressed their women out of the discourse remained common among political ideals. Abolitionism altogether. suffragists throughout the provided a natural segue to

Stanton went further than practice; Black women and brought the issue of voting ignoring the needs of Black men needed another wave of rights into focus. That same women; she actively sought activism, and more legislation, year, President Lyndon Johnson to deny men of color their before they could participate signed into law the Civil Rights rights by suggesting that their fully in their democracy. Act of 1964, which prohibited lack of education made them unequal application of voter less qualified to participate They would have to wait registration requirements. in democracy. Again debating another 40 years before the This was followed in 1965 by Frederick Douglass at a national sentiment tipped the Voting Rights Act, which convention in 1869, she in their favor; it wasn’t until prohibited literacy tests and opined, “think of Patrick the 1960s that the Civil provided federal monitoring and Sambo and Hans and Rights Movement gained to ensure that no localities Yung-Tung, who do not know momentum. It was then took measures to discourage the difference between a that Fannie Lou Hamer, a or prevent specific groups from monarchy and a republic, who woman in her 40s who had voting. cannot read the Declaration spent her life toiling on of Independence or Webster’s a plantation, took up the By this time, 19th century spelling book…making laws cause after making her first activists like Elizabeth Cady for Susan B. Anthony. The attempt to vote. Although Stanton were long dead— amendment creates an the 19th Amendment had many, like Stanton and Susan antagonism everywhere passed when Hamer was B. Anthony, had died before between educated, refined three years old, she’d lived the ratification of the 19th women and the lower orders decades of her life without Amendment in 1920. Their of men, especially in the knowing it applied to her. “I laudable efforts to achieve South.” had never heard until 1962,” suffrage earned them a spot Hamer said later, “that Black as heroes in countless history It’s hardly surprising, people could register and textbooks. But how can we given attitudes like these, vote.” Although she could idolize women who saw Blacks that although the 19th read well, Hamer failed a as inferior and considered amendment—ratified in literacy test, only passing it voting rights a zero sum game? 1920—technically granted on her third attempt after all women the right to studying esoteric details of vote, women of color faced the Mississippi Constitution. obstacles for many decades She made it her mission to afterwards. In the South, advocate for voting rights, people had to wait up to becoming an important 12 hours to register, which catalyst for the rapid social proved impossible for those change that characterized the working long hours to earn a era. meager living. Officials also subjected Southerners to In June 1964, three civil literacy tests, often requiring rights workers, who had specific knowledge about the volunteered to help Blacks state Constitutions, which register to vote in Mississippi, many could not pass because disappeared. The FBI later they’d had little access to recovered their bodies, and education. Some states also indicted sixteen members required aspiring voters to of the Ku Klux Klan in the pay poll taxes. The theoretical murders. It was a high-profile right to vote meant little in crime that even more clearly 17