HONORING WOMEN
Remembering the Ladies Marking the places where Huntsville suffragettes made history
O
n the centennial anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, the Historic Huntsville Foundation, the Twickenham Town Chapter of the DAR, and the Councill High School Alumni Association are creating a lasting tribute to Huntsville’s pantheon of suffrage heroes through four historic markers that recognize the Black and white Huntsville women whose fight for equal suffrage shaped the future of our nation. These markers will ensure that the stories of the leaders of the Huntsville Equal Suffrage Association (HESA) and the six Black Madison County women who successfully registered to vote in 1920 are permanently inscribed in the Huntsville landscape.
A group photo of the Huntsville League for Women’s Suffrage, circa 1895. Image courtesy of HMCPL.
Huntsville’s suffrage movement began in 1895, when Susan B. Anthony and Carrie Chapman Catt spoke to an overflow crowd in Huntsville’s City Hall. After Anthony spoke, Milton Humes stepped forward and declared the creation of HESA. Many of the city’s most prominent men and women lined up to join. Knowing their attendance would violate Huntsville’s color line, no Black men or women attended the meeting. But Black women clearly understood the importance of women’s suffrage and how voting rights could benefit themselves and their community. 24
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The white women who led HESA were philanthropic and worked for the betterment of their community. They founded the City Infirmary, the forerunner of Huntsville Hospital. They supported the public library and funded literacy campaigns. They wanted better schools, health and sanitation reforms, and workplace reforms to keep children from textile mills and coal mines. Their prejudice, however, blinded them to the injustices caused by racial inequality. The majority of Alabamians opposed women’s suffrage in 1895. They believed politics was the domain of men, and that women had privileged status as wives and mothers and should not involve themselves in political matters. Suffragists adopted an incremental approach to women’s rights and lobbied the Alabama legislature for laws that gave women more control over their bodies and property. In 1900, the Alabama Legislature passed laws that allowed women to will their estate to whomever they wished and have a bank account in their own name. The Legislature also raised the age of consent for women, or girls, from 10 to 14 years of age, a bill they had refused to approve in previous sessions. Interest in women’s suffrage lagged until around 1912, when success at the national level energized Alabama’s local suffrage groups. HESA reconvened and members faced an immediate challenge finding a regular meeting place. Members hoped to meet at the Greene Street YMCA, as HESA members regularly donated to the YMCA. The YMCA denied their request, stating that women’s suffrage was too controversial. ElEllelee Chapman Humes, lelee Humes, HESA vice president, the force behind Huntsville’s volunteered her McClung Avenue Suffrage Movement. house for meetings. Under Humes’ leadership, HESA grew their support and established new suffrage organizations in the Tennessee Valley. By 1915, there were 46 suffrage organizations in Alabama with over A HUNTSVILLE/MADISON COUNTY CHAMBER PUBLICATION