Women’s Equality Day commemorates the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, prohibiting states or the federal government from denying any citizen the right to vote on the basis of their sex. But as it seems to be with all history I thought I knew, I found there to be so much more to this movement. So many courageous women worked tirelessly for decades to be treated as equals within our country.
Here are my top BIG (but condensed) takeaways of key leaders, events, and facts within the fight for voting rights for women.
The roots of women’s suffrage are in anti-slavery work.
Suffragists fought alongside abolitionists. Susan B. Anthony was hated for this work and endured many threats and abuses. Many women leaders of this time endured physical violence for speaking out.
At the first World Anti-Slavery Convention held in 1840, all eight American delegates were refused entrance or participation because they were women.
Leaders Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton eventually championed a split from the abolitionist camp, citing their disgust at the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments securing Black men the right to vote while continuing to ban women from the voting booth as well as other places where decisions were to be made.
Anthony and Stanton thought aligning with strategies of white supremacists would be beneficial in their cause, especially with the strong southern vote. They worked with known white supremacist elected officials to make votes for (white) women a constitutional amendment. The slogans and political speeches used included bigotry, racist slurs, and outright support for lynching (look up Rebecca Felton for more on that).
Frederick Douglass, a once supporter of women’s suffrage, split from Anthony and Stanton to support the Fifteenth Amendment securing the Black man’s right to vote before his death years later, all parties reconciled, including Anthony and Stanton.
Gender and race are woven in and through all of this and will continue to be!
The use of bigotry to further the cause of women’s suffrage was in full force by the early 20th century. One side of this was arguing that a federal amendment securing a woman’s right to vote would actually solidify white supremacy as the law of the land, while the other side was now wanting it to be an individual State’s decision for fear that the federal amendment would threaten white supremacy ( look up activist Kate Gordon).
#6 – No one was including women of color in any of these conversations. Black and brown women, as well as other women of different religious affiliations, had to form their own associations and clubs to make their voice heard.
#7 – Almost twenty years after splitting, Stanton helped to bring back the progressive and conservative suffrage organizations in partnership. Great things started happening! Jane Addams began the first settlement housing, which spread to multiple States. She eventually was the first American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize and helped to lead many women into social work.
#8 – A national organization was formed in the early 20th century that canvased against women’s suffrage. It included many women, leaders of the Catholic Church, Southern politicians, and distillery and brewer businesses. The leading thought was the overall fear of allowing millions of African American women the right to vote, in addition to the passing of the Black male vote with the 15th Amendment. The evils of racism ran deep on the floors of the House and Senate (I will spare you the horrendous language here, but read more on Sen. Ellison Smith)
#9 – By 1917, Alice Paul entered the D.C. scene and formed the National Woman’s Party. Starting in January of that year, she and over a thousand other women picketed the White House, held rallies and marches along Pennsylvania Avenue, and endured physical and verbal violence for eighteen months. Alice was arrested during one of these vocal protests and sentenced to seven months in jail for “trespassing”. She went on a hunger strike while in jail to protest!
#10 – In 1918, President Wilson finally gave his support for women’s suffrage. The Nineteenth Amendment was fully ratified in 1920.
Despite the passing in August 1920, millions of Black and minority women AND men still were not able to vote. Southern States had taken extreme measures with Jim Crow laws that included poll taxes, literacy tests, violence and abuse, segregated education, and lynching. Native American women were only considered citizens of the United States in 1924. Still, they were not given the right to vote until the Voting Rights Act of 1965, while Chinese-American Immigrant women were not eligible for citizenship, and it took almost twenty years to win the right to vote.
“When I think of all the wrongs that have been heaped upon womankind, I am ashamed that I am not forever in a condition of chronic wrath.” -Elizabeth Stanton.
On Women’s Equality Day, we remember the freedoms given to women had to be pleaded and worked for. And if I held onto any truth it is that nothing is final and all could be stripped away by the stroke of a pen. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 that protected minority women voters? The Supreme Court has been removing protections and giving power back to individual States (even States with histories of discriminatory voting restrictions) since 2013 and they are not done.
I wish freedom did not come with “for some-not all” disclaimers. The fight for true Women’s equality is far from over, and I intend to keep on fighting.
