Heroes of Suffrage

100 YEARS IN PURSUIT OF THE VOTE w THE NEXT WOMEN’S MOVEMENT IS NOW

Section X

xxxday, xxxxx xx, 2020

xxxxxxxxxxx

xxxxxxxxxx

ABOUT this SECTION “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.”

— 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution Ratified in August 1920, the 19th Amendment granted women the right to vote. But in some ways that was only the beginning of American women’s fight for equality.

African Americans still have been turned away at the polls.

While women are now a facet of every level of elected office, representatives for young, Native American and Muslim American females are only just securing their places. And we still haven’t seen a woman elected president or vice president of the United States.

This section looks at leaders in the fight for suffrage 100 years ago, and what’s next.

2

EXPLORE MORE in the APP A full interactive story accompanying the stories of Carrie Chapman Catt, Mary Church Terrell and Elizabeth Cady Stanton can be found within the Augmented Reality section of the USA TODAY app. To access:

2

1

Click on Sections in the bottom menu.

3 4

Download the latest version of the USA TODAY app on your Android or iOS AR-capable device.

Scroll down to Augmented Reality; tap to open the AR section.

Scroll to Heroes of Suffrage and tap to begin.

TABLE of CONTENTS 3 Carrie Chapman Catt 9 Mary Church Terrell 15 Elizabeth Cady Stanton 21 Historical photos 27 The letter that changed history 32 The roles of African American women in the fight to vote 35 A woman opposing the women’s vote 39 10 women who changed U.S. politics 43 100 years in pursuit of voting rights 46 The next women’s movement is now

STAFF Editor LISA GLOWINSKI Art Director TONY FERNANDEZ-DAVILA COVER IMAGES: WIKIMEDIA, GANNETT

©2020 GANNETT CO. INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

chapter I

CARRIE CHAPMAN CATT 3

“Some day the history of these past few months will be written and if the writer catches the real spirit of it all it will be a thrilling story.”

CARRIE CHAPMAN CATT

I

t was Feb. 21, 1920.

Though Carrie Chapman Catt could not announce victory yet while addressing an audience at the Congress Hotel in Chicago, she knew it was near. It had felt a long time to some since June 1919, when Congress submitted the 19th amendment to the states for ratification.

“Be Joyful Today” was her hype speech to the women fighting for suffrage around the country. Stay focused, she encouraged, while state legislatures ratify the amendment. Stay focused on our ideal and we women, she promised, will win the right to vote.

“Suffragists were never dismayed when they were a tiny group and all the world against them. What care they now when all the world is with them? March on, suffragists — the victory is yours.”

Much of that victory was owed to Carrie herself, a leader and strategist for the women’s suffrage movement. Born in 1859, Carrie was a barrierbreaking woman in so many ways.

“The enemies of progress and liberty never surrender and never die. Ever since the days of cave men, they have stood ready with their sledge hammers to strike any liberal idea on the head whenever it appeared. They are still active, hysterically active over our amendment, still imagining as their progenitors for thousands of years have done, that a fly sitting on the wheel of progress may command it to revolve no more and that it will obey. The trail has been long and winding; the struggle has been tedious and wearying, you made sacrifices and received many hard knocks. Be joyful today.”

— Catt

ILLUSTRATIONS BY MARY ANN LAWRENCE, GANNETT

4

5

When Carrie became the leader of the suffrage movement for the second time, she unleashed her strategic secret sauce, the “Winning Plan,” a two-pronged approach to winning the right to vote; invest time and energy in the states that would ratify the 19th Amendment, while at the same time lobby in Washington for Congress to introduce the amendment to the states.

Enemies of progress and liberty were no match for Carrie, the strategist behind the plan that secured women the right to vote.

She was a national suffrage leader who wrote speeches, organized volunteers, traveled the country and built what would become the winning strategy for suffrage.

“We may be a bit impatient but candor should make us realize that the progress of ratification has been safe, sane, wholesome and its final triumph certain. We should be glad and grateful today but more we should be proud, proud that the 51 years of organized endeavor have been clean, constructive, conscientious. Our army never resorted to lies, innuendoes, misrepresentation. It never called its enemies names. In all the years it has never paid a federal lobbyist and so far as I know no state has paid a legislative lobbyist. During the 50 years it has rarely had a salaried officer and even then she has been paid less than her earning capacity elsewhere. It has been an army of volunteers who have estimated no sacrifice too great, no service too difficult.”

6

“Ours has been a movement with a soul, a dauntless, unconquerable soul ever leading on. Women came, served and passed on, but others came to take their places while the same great soul was ever marching on through hundreds, nay a thousand years. A soul immortal directing, leading the woman crusade for the liberation of the Mothers of the Race. That soul is here today and who shall say that all the hosts of the millions of women who have toiled and hoped and met delay are not here today and joining in the rejoicing of their cause at last, at last has won its triumph.”

7

The ‘Winning Plan’ worked, and Catt is credited, with a few other leaders, for the introduction of the 19th Amendment to the United States of America.

“Women be glad today. Let your voices ring out the gladness in your hearts. There will never come another day like this. Let the joy be unconfined and let it speak so clearly that its echo will be heard around the world and find its way into the soul of every woman of any and every race and nationality who is yearning for opportunity and liberty still denied her sex.”

8

chapter II

MARY CHURCH TERRELL 9

“Whenever I present the justice of woman suffrage, I always feel like blushing for shame.”

L

MARY CHURCH TERRELL

ike many suffragists of the time, Mary Church Terrell didn’t shy away from a fight, like when she reasoned women should have the right to vote in a speech given in 1910 to Washington D.C. public school teachers. But unlike many suffragists, Mary was fighting two battles at the same time. The daughter of former slaves, she also fought passionately for the rights of black people across the United States. Mary was at the center of these two intersecting fights and became a trailblazer for civil rights. With two degrees, Mary believed education was the way to change hearts and minds toward equality.

Mary would often describe the arguments against granting suffrage as the exact same arguments used to disenfranchise black men. She spent more than 20 years fighting for suffrage. During that time, she picketed the White House demanding the vote.

She urged crowds to break free from outdated beliefs.

“They have heard their grandfathers, or their cousins or their aunts express opinions for or against certain propositions, and they have lazily, good-naturedly accepted them, without troubling themselves to see whether those opinions will stand the test of reason and fact.”

ILLUSTRATIONS BY

“Why it is unjust to withhold from one half of the human race rights and privileges which are freely accorded to the other half, which is neither more deserving nor more capable of exercising them, seems almost like an insult to those whom one speaks. It certainly seems like a reflection upon the intelligence of those to whom such reasons are presented.”

AUDREY TATE, GANNETT

10

11

Mary was a pioneer. Though the idea of suffrage was still considered unjust by some, She believed that someday a woman voting would become as commonplace as a woman riding a bike.

“We all remember how shocked we were, when for the first time in our lives we saw a woman riding on a bicycle through the public streets. The women who first rode wheels were considered very vulgar and very bold. But for first one reason and then another, women decided to defy the various communities in which they lived. Then sprang up a great army of women cyclists and soon people became so accustomed to seeing women riding wheels that they did not even turn around to look at them in the street. People had grown so accustomed to the sight that they considered it neither unnatural nor unusual any longer.”

12

Mary demanded in speeches and essays that white women include black women in the fight for the right to vote, and urged black men to support the fight for suffrage in an essay she wrote in 1912.

“It is difficult to believe that any individual in the United States with one drop of African blood in his veins can oppose woman suffrage. What could be more absurd than to see one group of human beings who are denied rights which they are trying to secure for themselves working to prevent another group from obtaining the same rights?

For the very arguments which are advanced against granting the right of suffrage to women are offered by those who have disfranchised colored men.”

13

Mary co-founded and was the first leader of the National Association of Colored Women, a federation of local clubs that viewed winning women the right to vote as a critical step in improving the lives of black people across the country, both men and women.

“The word ‘people’ has been turned and twisted to mean all who are shrewd and wise enough to have themselves born boys instead of girls, and white instead of black.”

Her words, “lifting as we climb,” became the motto of the NACW. “Until the path is blazed by the pioneer, even some people who have superior intellects and moral courage dare not forge ahead.”

14

chapter III

ELIZABETH CADY STANTON 15

S

eventytwo years prior to the 19th amendment, Elizabeth Cady Stanton helped organize the Seneca Falls Convention, considered by many to be the beginning of the women’s suffrage movement in the United States. Her keynote address unveiled the “Declaration of Sentiments,” which offered edits to the Declaration of Independence. Namely, asserting that all men — and women — are created equal, and calling out the inequality women faced, from divorce laws to restricting educational opportunities.

“We have met here today to discuss our rights and wrongs, civil and political, and not, as some have supposed, to go into the detail of social life alone.”

ELIZABETH CADY STANTON “Voices were the visitors and advisers of Joan of Arc. Do not ‘voices’ come to us daily from the haunts of poverty, sorrow, degradation, and despair, already too long unheeded?

Now is the time for the women of this country, if they would save our free institutions, to defend the right, to buckle on the armor that can best resist the keenest weapons of the enemy—contempt and ridicule. The same religious enthusiasm that nerved Joan of Arc to her work nerves us to ours.

From a young age, Elizabeth rejected the traditional gender roles placed on her and became not only a suffragist, but an abolitionist and an activist fighting for women’s health, wealth and educational opportunities.

She would write in her autobiography that she felt discontented with the plight of women. She hated the constant supervision and being placed into the mold of being a mother, wife and housekeeper.

She wrote essays and speeches, hoping to break that mold.

“… Strange as it may seem to many, we now demand our right to vote according to the declaration of the government under which we live. … The right is ours. Have it, we must.

Use it, we will. The pens, the tongues, the fortunes, the indomitable wills of many women are already pledged to secure this right. The great truth that no just government can be formed without the consent of the governed we shall echo and re-echo in the ears of the unjust judge, until by continual coming we shall weary him.”

ILLUSTRATIONS BY SOMMER TORABI, GANNETT

16

17

This suffragist with a sharp pen became a force in the suffrage movement, splitting her time between writing essays and recruiting for the cause with raising her seven children. During that time, Elizabeth formed a friendship with Susan B. Anthony. Susan visited Elizabeth often in her home in Seneca Falls and would help look after the children so that Elizabeth could write speeches in support of suffrage. Susan then traveled the country giving those speeches.

Women winning the right to vote was just one aspect of her fight for equality.

Elizabeth also took to the streets of New York City with petitions supporting the New York Married Women’s Property Act, advocating for the rights of married women, who could not own property or earn and manage their own money.

“It is the wise mother that has the wise son.

So long as your women are slaves you may throw your colleges and churches to the winds. You can’t have scholars and saints so long as your mothers are ground to powder between the upper and nether millstone of tyranny and lust.”

18

“… We are assembled to protest against a form of government existing without the consent of the governed - to declare our right to be free as man is free, to be represented in the government which we are taxed to support, to have such disgraceful laws as give man the power to chastise and imprison his wife, to take the wages which she earns, the property which she inherits, and, in case of separation, the children of her love; laws which make her the mere dependent on his bounty.”

19

Elizabeth’s beliefs and opinions could be controversial. In a move that split the suffrage movement in two, she and Susan opposed the 15th Amendment, which gave black men the right to vote, because it did not extend that right to women. She published a controversial book, the “Woman’s Bible,” in which she argued religion was a form of oppression against women. She continued writing until she died in 1902, 18 years before women would win the right to vote.

HISTORICAL PHOTOS

“We do not expect our path will be strewn with the flowers of popular applause, but over the thorns of bigotry and prejudice will be our way, and on our banners will beat the dark storm clouds of opposition from those who have entrenched themselves behind the stormy bulwarks of custom and authority, and who have fortified their position by every means, holy and unholy.

But we will steadfastly abide the result. Unmoved we will bear it aloft. Undauntedly we will unfurl it to the gale, for we know that the storm cannot rend from it a shred, that the electric flash will but more clearly show to us the glorious words inscribed upon it, ‘Equality of Rights.’”

National American Woman Suffrage Association postcard, 1910.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (seated) with Susan B. Anthony, circa 1900. WIKIMEDIA PHOTOS

20

Alice Paul was honored in 2012 on a $10 U.S. gold coin.

21

Inez Boissevain, wearing a white cape, is seated on white horse at the suffrage parade in Washington, D.C., 1913. WIKIMEDIA

Women’s suffragist parade in New York City in 1917, carrying placards with the signatures of more than a million women.

WIKIMEDIA PHOTOS

PHOTOS

Party members picketing the Republican convention, Chicago, June 1920. Abby Scott Baker (from left), Florence Taylor Marsh, Sue Shelton White, Elsie Hill, Betty Gram.

Alice Paul and Helen Gardener, circa 1908 to 1915.

Mary Church Terrell

Headquarters of the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage.

22

23

Alice Paul’s gravesite WIKIMEDIA PHOTOS

Studio portrait of Alice Paul printed in The Suffragist, Dec. 25, 1915. A vocal leader of the 20th century suffrage movement, Paul next authored the Equal Rights Amendment in 1923, which has yet to be adopted.

24

Helen Hamilton Gardener (from left), Carrie Chapman Catt and Maud Wood Park on the balcony of Suffrage House, the Washington headquarters of the National American Woman Suffrage Association.

Program for NAWSA’s 1913 Woman Suffrage Procession in Washington.

WIKIMEDIA PHOTOS

Carrie Chapman Catt (right) exiting the White House with Helen Hamilton Gardener.

A chorus of disreputable men supports an anti-suffrage woman in this 1915 cartoon from Puck magazine. The caption “I did not raise my girl to be a voter” parodies the antiwar song “I Didn’t Raise My Boy To Be A Soldier.”

A promotional map of the woman’s suffrage movement in the U.S. and Canada by 1917.

The U.S. states and Canadian provinces that had adopted suffrage are colored white (or dotted and crossed, in case of partial suffrage) and the others black.

25

‘Be a good boy’ and

VOTE for SUFFRAGE PHOTOS VIA USA TODAY | LIBRARY OF CONGRESS | WIKIMEDIA

How one note changed history

I

By Monica Kast USA TODAY Network

Emmeline Pankhurst and Elizabeth Wolstenholme, organizers of Women’s Sunday, stand in front of a crowd in Hyde Park, London on June 21, 1908.

Jeannette Rankin

chapter IV

Barbara Jordan

WOMEN of the CENTURY

Margaret Chase Smith

n downtown Knoxville, Tennessee, at the corner of Clinch Avenue and Market Street, stands a formal-looking statue of Harry Burn and his mother, Febb Ensminger Burn.

The statue doesn’t tell much at a glance. But it commemorates a simple act between family members that changed the course of American history.

In 1920, Harry Burn, a young state representative from McMinn County, Tennessee, cast the deciding vote to ratify the 19th Amendment in the state. The Volunteer State became the 36th to ratify — making the 19th Amendment law and giving women the right to vote nationwide.

Before the vote, the freshman representative was undecided. But when it came time for the roll call, Burn voted in favor of suffrage.

What helped convince him?

A handwritten letter from his mother, now a piece of history preserved in a museum just one block away from the statue.

Febb Ensminger Burn’s letter to her son Harry Burn photographed at the McClung Collection in downtown Knoxville Feb. 3, 2020.

‘Vote for Suffrage’ The seven-page letter is written in pencil on lined paper. The outer envelope is addressed in pen to Hon. H. T. Burn at the State Capitol building in Nashville, with a red 2 cent postage stamp in the top right corner.

“Dear Son,” the letter starts. “I wish you were home too. We have had nothing but rain since you left.”

Febb, 47 at the time the letter was written, goes on to talk about recent visitors, and ask if Harry, 24, will be home for Labor Day. The letter reminded Harry to “be a Good Boy.” Between updates about their neighbors and Harry’s siblings, she urged him to vote for suffrage.

“Hurray and vote for Suffrage and don’t keep them in doubt,” she wrote.

Febb “was just a fearless person,” said Tyler L. Boyd, her greatgreat-grandson. In 2019 Boyd published “Tennessee Statesman Harry T. Burn: Woman Suffrage, Free Elections and a Life of Service.”

Shirley Chisholm

26

27

Where is the letter now?

A Burn family photo from 1920 photographed at the McClung Historical Collection in downtown Knoxville.

Febb Ensminger Burn, at right, is leaning over her son Harry Burn, second from right, in the photo.

“She was just a good, old-fashioned Southern woman, matriarch, who happened to get put in the middle of history,” Boyd said.

Febb was educated and became a teacher before returning to work on the Burn family farm. After her husband died in 1916, the ownership of the farm passed on to her sons. Febb ran the farm, despite the fact that she could not legally own it.

Boyd said he believes that was one spark that pushed her to advocate for suffrage.

“She really spoke about the morality of the vote ... ‘I’m glad that my son believes in my rights as a mother and as a woman,’” Boyd said of Febb’s opinions.

In the letter, Febb noted that while other representatives had made their position on suffrage known, she was still waiting to see how her son planned to vote.

“Don’t forget to be a good boy and help Mrs. Thomas Catt with her ‘Rats,’” she wrote. “Is she the one that put rat in ratification, ha! No more from mama this time. With lots of love, Mama.”

Mrs. Thomas Catt was Carrie Chapman Catt, who took over leadership of the National American Woman Suffrage Association from Susan B. Anthony.

Her “rats” were the people who wanted to ratify the 19th Amendment.

When it became clear that Tennessee could become the deciding vote, Catt spent the summer of 1920 making speeches and advocating for suffrage across the state.

28

“SHE WAS JUST A GOOD, OLD-FASHIONED SOUTHERN WOMAN, MATRIARCH, WHO HAPPENED TO GET PUT IN THE MIDDLE OF HISTORY.” TYLER L. BOYD

A statue of Febb Ensminger Burn and her son Harry Burn stands at the corner of Clinch Avenue and Market Street in downtown Knoxville.

Harry T. Burn, Jr., wrote that his grandmother, Febb, “thought all adults regardless of station in life or any other characteristics had something to contribute to our political process. ... She was a very practical person.”

The letter was delivered to Harry Burn at the state capitol, where he had arrived wearing a red rose, signaling he would vote against suffrage.

After two votes to table the resolution tied 48-48, Speaker Seth Walker called for a vote on the merits of the resolution. If the amendment failed in Tennessee, finding another state to ratify it would have been difficult, Boyd wrote in his book.

Burn, the fourth to vote, quickly voted “Aye,” a change that sent shock waves through the room. After the full vote was taken, shock turned into chaos.

“It was pandemonium,” Boyd wrote. “There is no better word to describe the House chamber after the vote. Like a room full of graduates tossing their caps into the air upon commencement, the suffragists in the gallery tossed their yellow roses in the air. They screamed, sang and danced in joy.”

The original letter is stored in the East Tennessee History Center, part of the McClung Historical Collection in Knoxville.

Steve Cotham, the manager of the collection, said the family was at first hesitant to have the letter displayed publicly because of how informal it was.

“The family story is because (Febb) was embarrassed about the letter because it was a personal letter, written in pencil on a tablet,” Cotham said. “She was a very well-educated woman and if she was going to make a plea, for something formal, she wouldn’t have done it that way.”

The vote for suffrage “was a hard battle” in Tennessee, Cotham said. Once it passed, some legislators immediately moved to try to undo the vote.

“It was a real crucial moment because once the procedures in the vote had happened, the legislators were trying to undo it,” Cotham said. “But once it happened, the official documents went to the Tennessee secretary of state and he put them on a train to Washington.

“By the time they were pushing to try to have another vote, the secretary of state in Washington had already accepted the proof of the election,” Cotham said.

29

Febb Ensminger Burn’s letter to her son Harry Burn and a suffrage banner photographed at the McClung Historical Collection in downtown Knoxville.

“THERE IS NO BETTER WORD TO DESCRIBE THE HOUSE CHAMBER AFTER THE VOTE. LIKE A ROOM FULL OF GRADUATES TOSSING THEIR CAPS INTO THE AIR UPON COMMENCEMENT, THE SUFFRAGISTS IN THE GALLERY TOSSED THEIR YELLOW ROSES IN THE AIR. THEY SCREAMED, SANG AND DANCED IN JOY.” TYLER L. BOYD

30

Harry Burn of Rockwood, Tennessee, pictured in 1948.

“Don’t forget to be a good boy, and help Mrs. Thomas Catt with her ‘Rats’” is written toward the end of Febb Ensminger Burn’s letter to her son Harry Burn, photographed at the McClung Historical Collection in downtown Knoxville.

How is the letter preserved?

Each page of the Burn letter is stored in protective mylar sheets and are stored in acid-free archival folders and boxes.

Despite rumors that the letter had been destroyed, it has been stored in the McClung Collection since 1978.

It’s been scanned and uploaded to the collection’s website and copies have appeared in several textbooks. As the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment approaches, Cotham said they’ve gotten requests to view the letter at least once a day.

The collection also has about 250

EACH PAGE OF THE BURN LETTER IS STORED IN PROTECTIVE MYLAR SHEETS AND ARE STORED IN ACID-FREE ARCHIVAL FOLDERS AND BOXES.

telegrams Burn received before and after the vote. Some are in favor of suffrage, while others are against.

“It was controversial,” Cotham said. “The anti-suffrage group was of the opinion that if women got really interested in politics, it would pull them away from their major responsibility with hearth and home, taking care of children and taking care of families.

They were pretty passionate about that.

“The other side, a lot of women were already thinking about being in the workforce, and that was fairly new,” Cotham continued. “They really wanted to be part of the bigger public.”

31

‘BRILLIANT and POLITICALLY

SAVVY’

The roles of African American women in the fight to vote

I

By Jessica Bliss and Jasmine Vaughn-Hall USA TODAY Network

n a pair of three-story brick row houses on an avenue in northwest Baltimore, Margaret Hawkins and Augusta Chissell lived side by side.

Driven to the same city block by the forces of residential segregation, they were united by a common ambition — the push for racial and women’s equality.

Streets away lived another activist with similar sentiments. A teacher and mother, Estelle Young was eager to see Black women, including one day her own daughter, earn a spot at the polls. Young befriended the two women down the road.

Together they became a neighborly powerhouse, leading the campaign for suffrage from their own living rooms.

Their names aren’t familiar to most, suppressed by a century of fragmented history, but their activism mirrors a movement across the country.

More than 100 years ago, as a groundswell of momentum pushed toward giving women the right to vote, Black women nationwide stood up to join the cause.

Even when racism tore through the movement — undercutting their efforts and severing the strength of a united female front — they were undeterred.

What Black suffragists achieved greatly shaped the fight for women’s rights.

In the wake of the centennial celebration of the 19th Amendment, a history once silenced is slowly resurfacing. Stories of the relentless efforts of women of color have found a new platform, providing a chance to elevate what has been untold.

“The traditional narrative does often leave out large groups of women who don’t fit into the white, middle-class story of women’s rights,” said Earnestine Jenkins, a professor of art and researcher of African American history at the University of Memphis. “You have to be honest about the racism in the movement and the extent they kept women of color out of the movement. ... You have to look for those hidden histories because otherwise, you are not going to get the complete story.”

32

Once united, then divided In the throes of the Civil War, as the North and South raged over Black rights, the strong parallels between the situations of slaves and the situations of women became evident.

Convinced that freedom for one would be victory for both, white women such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton became devoted abolitionists.

When the war ended, the alignment did not last.

After the passage of the 14th and 15th Amendments, which gave voting rights to Black men but not to women, Anthony — a former stationmaster for the Underground Railroad — became infuriated.

“I will cut off this right arm of mine before I ever work or demand the ballot for the Negro and not the woman,” she said.

The intemperance alienated some suffragists, and by 1875, when Anthony drafted the amendment that would bear her name, the movement had split.

The aftershocks of abolition shook the South. Many feared any push for a law that would give not only white women, but also Black women, a place at the polls. A new reality set in.

“They realized that there really wasn’t as much common ground between African American suffragists and white, middle-class suffragists as there might have been in a society that wasn’t so polarized in questions of race,” said Susan Ware, author of “Why They Marched: Untold Stories of the Women Who Fought for the Right to Vote.”

Guided by ‘a broader vision’ Unlike the predominantly white suffrage leaders — whose social privilege allowed them to look at voting rights through the lens of gender alone — Black suffragists had more to consider.

Jim Crow laws in the South

undermined voting rights won by Black men. They were made to use separate drinking fountains, sit in segregated seats at restaurants and on trains. They even swore on separate Bibles in court.

Literacy tests and high poll taxes prevented many from casting their ballots. Though Black women fervently wanted a place at the polls, they wanted to ensure that Black men could be there, too.

“They didn’t have the luxury to just be working for their own vote,” Ware said. “They were trying to improve conditions for their race and community. It was a broader vision.”

They knew having the vote would help empower them against discrimination. So they took up the campaign alongside the white women of higher class and social status.

For a time, they were allies in the movement — hailed for voices they elevated.

‘Power added to influence’ Among the most eloquent of those was Frances E.W. Harper.

An orphan and young poet, Harper was inspired to take up the abolitionist cause when her home state of Maryland passed a fugitive slave law, allowing even free Blacks such as Harper to be arrested and sold into slavery.

She formed alliances with strong figures in the suffrage movement, including Anthony, and began giving anti-slavery speeches throughout the northern U.S. Through her powerful prose and poetry, she elevated issues of racism, feminism and class.

“The ballot in the hands of woman means power added to influence,” Harper said in an address before the World’s Congress of Representative Women at the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893. “How well she will use that power I can not foretell.”

In this battle, like many others to come, the women were not equals.

Wisconsin Rep. Shelia Stubbs pauses to recognize the late Vel Phillips during the Women’s Suffrage Centennial Celebration at the Capitol in Madison in June 2019. Phillips was the first woman and African American woman on the Milwaukee Common Council. She died in 2018. Wisconsin was the first state to ratify the 19th Amendment. ANGELA PETERSON / MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL / USA TODAY NETWORK

In 1890, the two largest rival women’s suffrage organizations — once divided over issues such as race — decided the only way to win the vote was with a united front. They merged, forming the National American Woman Suffrage Association.

It was the dominant white suffrage organization of the time, known at times to hold conventions that excluded Black women.

Still women of color persevered in a fight seemingly separate — and yet the same.

Building influence through community In west Baltimore, Hawkins, Chissell and Young found kindred spirits in each other, using their neighborhood connections to pioneer for equal voting rights.

As leaders in The DuBois Circle — an African American women’s club founded in 1907 — they brought women of their race together for change.

At first, the group “focused on literature, the arts and famous Negroes, as they called it,” said Beverly Carter, historian and archivist for the DuBois Circle.

They sought knowledge and a way to connect it to the community, and through it, they expanded scope.

“They participated in political activities, civic activities ... and as a group, they addressed the suffrage issue,” Carter said.

They built influence through community, establishing social groups and engaging churches to spearhead change. They developed robust grassroots networks.

It wasn’t long before Young founded the Progressive Women’s Suffrage Club, in which Hawkins became the vice president and Chissell was the secretary.

They joined a collaboration of Black women nationwide, many

who organized under the National Association of Colored Women, the largest federation of Black women’s clubs.

Their collective effort, said Sally Roesch Wagner, editor of “The Women’s Suffrage Movement” anthology, was both “brilliant and politically savvy.”

An attack on Southern sensibilities

Carole Bucy, a county historian in Nashville, Tennessee. “The position of the woman was relatively inconsequential.”

Despite early unity with abolitionists and the “votes for all” rhetoric, when it came to the final push for suffrage, gender equality superseded racial equality for the movement’s upper-middle-class white leaders.

If the women’s vote was to be won, Black women could not stand in the spotlight.

Holding to the motto “Lifting as We Climb,” Mary Church Ter‘For the future benefit rell became the first president of of my whole race’ the National Association of Colored Women, which endorsed the womMany refused to be silenced. en’s suffrage movement in 1912.

Among them, Ida B. Wells An influential educator and activspoke louder than most. ist, Terrell was born to former A journalist and newspaper edislaves in Memphis, Tennessee. tor, Wells founded the Alpha Suffrage Her parents used their freedom to Club for African American women, become small-business owners. the first for Black women in Illinois.

Terrell, hardworking and ambitious, In 1913, Wells and other activbecame one of the first ists traveled from Illinois to African American women Washington to participate in to earn a college degree. the Woman Suffrage ProcesShe moved to Washsion — the first major national ington, becoming the event held for the movement. first Black woman to At first, Black suffragists had earn a position on the been rejected from joining, but board of education.

Wells and others wrote letters Terrell traveled nationasking to allow Black women wide, quoted in papers to participate. Eventually, from east to west on polarorganizers acquiesced, with izing topics of “the Negro one condition — Black suffragwomen” and “the race ists would march in the back.

A National problem.” When it came It was meant to assuage the Association of to suffrage, she could not feelings of Southern white Colored Women’s ignore her Southern roots. women, but Wells refused Convention In her visits back to Tenthe terms. Poised to forcibly delegate’s badge nessee and neighboring insert herself in the procesfeaturing Mary states, she noted the dission, she and a select few othBurnett Talbert. enfranchisement of Blacks ers, including Terrell, marched PHOTO ILLUSTRATION; — and the tactics used by alongside the white women COLLECTION OF white suffragists there. from their delegations.

The South decried the idea THE SMITHSONIAN “Either I go with you or not NATIONAL MUSEUM of suffrage. Many argued at all,” Wells said. “I am not OF AFRICAN that the plea rallied against taking this stand because I AMERICAN HISTORY their Southern sensibilities personally wish for recogniand attacked the sanctity of a AND CULTURE tion. I am doing it for the future woman’s place in the home. benefit of my whole race.”

“The No. 1 reason the South was not going to touch suffrage was race,” said

33

‘What will the Negro women do with the vote?’

After 41 years of debate, Congress approved the 19th Amendment on June 4, 1919.

By summer 1920, 35 of the nation’s 48 states had voted for ratification.

Eight states, six of them Southern, rejected it. Three refused to weigh in.

Only two states remained undecided: North Carolina and Tennessee.

Just one needed to vote in favor to make women’s suffrage the law of the land.

On May 18, 1920, three months before Tennessee lawmakers were to consider passing the 19th Amendment, Juno Frankie Pierce spoke at the first meeting of the newly formed League of Women Voters of Tennessee.

As the only African American female to speak that day, Pierce addressed the convention for the women of her race.

“What will the Negro women do with the vote?” she asked those gathered in the House chamber of the state Capitol. “We will stand by the white women.”

She told those at the meeting that Black women sought suffrage to receive “a square deal.”

Suffragists saw Tennessee as their last hope. And their worst nightmare.

Within the state, three factions emerged. Two groups of suffragists — one more extreme than the other — sought ratification, while one vocal contingent of anti-suffragists amplified the vicious opposition.

“The antis waved the race card mightily,” Bucy said. “And so did the suffragists in a less flamboyant way.”

White suffragists often avoided integrating issues of race into their campaigns. If they did speak of it, it came in the form of assurance that Black women would not upend the balance at the ballot box.

34

“They used the accepted fare of racial prejudice,” Bucy said.

“They said: ‘Look, there are already laws that keep African American men from voting. Those will still be intact. So if you are afraid women voting will bring in all these Black people voting, it won’t.’

“You can’t say the suffragists were racially tolerant people.”

A

Painting, oil on canvas, Ida B. Wells-Barnett,

by Larry Walker, 1994.

Wells-Barnett, who worked as a teacher and a journalist in Memphis, was an important advocate for African Americans’ and women’s rights. She formed a suffrage organization for African American women while living in Chicago and protested efforts to segregate African American women in a 1913 Washington, D.C., suffrage parade.

The vote won, women of color still turned away When it became clear that in the final fight for the vote, hard-won civil rights might be undermined, it was Black suffragists who chose tolerance.

“They asked: How do we hold back our anger? How do we hold back our frustration for the greater cause?” Wagner said.

“They negotiated the racism that was endemic in the movement to move the cause forward.”

The battle had been longer and uglier than anyone expected, but in the end, Tennessee came through, becoming the 36th and final state needed to ratify the 19th Amendment.

After the 19th Amendment passed in 1920, Chissell wrote a recurring column in the Baltimore Afro-American called “A Primer for Women Voters.”

It was “for the benefit of women who wish to inform themselves in regard to their newly acquired duties and privileges as voters and citizens.” Readers were urged to send Chissell questions, and she’d answer them in her column.

The Progressive Women’s Suffrage Club started teaching voter education classes.

But the reality was, though women finally secured the right to vote nationwide, Black women would be routinely turned away from the ballot box for decades to come.

It wasn’t until 1965, after the

TENNESSEE STATE MUSEUM

Voting Rights Act and subsequent court decisions, that tools of disenfranchisement that targeted people of color — including poll taxes and literacy tests — became outlawed.

A chance to ‘rethink our history’ Understanding the racial and class dynamics of this historical moment does not diminish the significance of the amendment or the activism that led to its ratification.

“In 2020, we have an opportunity to celebrate the vote,” Wagner said, “and also take accountability, to rethink our history.”

Fully realizing gender equality, racial justice and voter fairness

means understanding the past — and giving credit to the neighborly powerhouses of women who won it.

In front of the three-story houses where Chissell and Hawkins lived stands a new historic marker, highlighting the suffrage efforts that transpired in and around the homes.

It’s one of 11 that will commemorate Maryland women, events and sites associated with the suffrage movement.

And, with new vigilance, the markers probably won’t be the last.

There are still records to read, transcribe and document. There are still more hidden histories of the suffrage movement to be revealed.

WOMAN OPPOSING THE

WOMEN’S VOTE Josephine Pearson led the anti-suffrage fight

By Allie Clouse

I

USA TODAY Network

n 1914, Josephine Pearson leaned over her mother’s deathbed in the family’s modest home in the small East Tennessee town of Monteagle and vowed to continue her mother’s fight — to stop women’s suffrage.

Pearson was about 45 years old at the time, and it’d be six years before the 19th Amendment would make its way in front of Tennessee legislators, awaiting only one more state ratification before it would become law.

“Promise me,” Amanda Pearson begged Josephine, “you will take up the opposition, in my memory.”

“I was, of course, dazed,” Josephine wrote in 1939. “‘Yes, God helping, I’ll keep the faith, my mother.’”

Pearson kept her promise. In 1920, she stood on the front steps of the state capitol, fighting against women’s right to vote as the president of the Tennessee State Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage.

Becoming an ‘anti’ Many people in the 1800s opposed giving women the right to vote, but it wasn’t until a group of women published a petition to the United States Congress in “Godey’s Lady’s Book and Magazine” opposing suffrage in 1871 that anti-suffragists banded together and mobilized.

As suffragist organizations spread across the country, antis followed, meeting them with opposition wherAn anti-suffrage ever they went. poster suggesting Suffragists argued that women’s women should vote suffrage would because they were allow black women also subject to taxes to vote. TENNESSEE and the law. “Antis” STATE LIBRARY AND wanted to preserve ARCHIVES the traditional role of women in the household and, especially in the South, feared giving all women the right to vote would enfranchise Black voters.

Pearson was, unlike many of the other antis, not one to practice what she preached.

As a well-traveled university dean who was not married and never had children, she didn’t fit the motherly homemaker image that she and other “antis” tried to protect.

35

In her autobiography, Pearson wrote that one scholar told her that she “thought as a man.” A family member mentioned in a letter to Pearson that she hoped to see the day that Pearson was elected to the Senate.

Instead, she used her education and political savvy to write essays against suffrage, feminism and other topics she thought would honor her mother’s dying wish.

Elaine Weiss, journalist, researcher and author of “The Woman’s Hour,” called Pearson a “prolific letter-to-the-editor writer” — often penning letters that cut straight to the core of anti-suffrage ideals.

It wasn’t long before wealthy men, lawyers and lobbyists encouraged Pearson to take a more active role in the anti-suffrage movement. Nashville lawyer and liquor lobbyist John Jacob Vertrees invited Pearson to visit the city and consider joining the Tennessee State Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage. In 1917, she became its president.

Later, Vertrees would say that he chose her for three reasons: She had the experience and education to answer questions about anti-suffrage, she was from Tennessee, and she was “too brainy” to tell legislatures what to do, according to Anastatia Sims, a history professor at Georgia Southern University and author of “Powers That Pray and Powers That Prey: Tennessee and the Fight for Women’s Suffrage.”

Many vested businessmen like Vertrees were paying for the anti-suffrage movement but wanted it to appear as if women made up the majority of the opposition. In Pearson they found the face of the movement in Tennessee, and she traveled the state for three years on behalf of the organization, while still living in Monteagle with her father.

Her focus honed in on the capitol beginning in mid-July 1920, when she hurried to catch the first train to Nashville after

36

Gov. A.H. Roberts called a special session to vote on the 19th Amendment.

What ensued after can best be described as what journalist Joe Hatcher said was “the bitterest, barefisted, name-calling, back-biting session in the state’s history.”

The battle in Nashville Pearson recalled the day she left Monteagle as “the very hottest day” she ever experienced. She felt a different type of heat in Nashville, facing up against famous suffragist leaders Carrie Chapman Catt, president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, and Sue Shelton White, a local feminist leader and chairman of the National Woman’s Party.

Pearson checked into the cheapest room at the Hermitage Hotel and reserved the assembly rooms to use as anti-suffrage headquarters to prepare for the “World War,” she would write.

Suffragists and anti-suffragists didn’t pull their punches in that war. The groups attacked one another publicly with posters and pamphlets while lobbying behind the closed doors of legislators’ offices.

Sims wrote that the antis sent so many telegrams to pro-suffrage representatives that two legislators complained that they were “called up every half hour day and night so that they had no sleep.”

Another legislator was threatened by the antis, who warned he would lose his teaching job if he didn’t change his vote.

Suffragist leaders embarked on a statewide speaking tour to convince Tennesseans that the men who owned the biggest whiskey, textile and railroad companies were motivating and paying for the anti-suffrage efforts.

Sims said the clash between the two movements was so intense that suffragist leader Abby Crawford Milton insisted that the devil himself had been working with the antis to keep the ballot from women that summer in Nashville.

A collection of newspaper clippings about the anti-suffrage movement with a photo of Josephine Pearson in the top right. TENNESSEE STATE LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES

A racist antisuffrage pamphlet distributed by the Southern Women’s League for the Rejection of the Susan B. Anthony Amendment TENNESSEE STATE LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES

Anti-suffrage political cartoons Antis waged personal attacks on suffragists and legislators who supported the amendment. One anti-suffrage political cartoon titled “America When Feminized” pictures a hen with a “Votes for Women” sash leaving her eggs behind, telling the rooster to “set on them yourself, old man, my country calls me.”

The broadside makes claims that “the more a politician allows himself to be henpecked the more henpecking we will have in politics” and “a vote for federal suffrage is a vote for female nagging forever.” Women’s suffrage, it asserted, would masculinize women and feminize men.

They distributed materials that argued giving women the right to vote would destroy traditional gender roles and family relationships.

Another anti-suffrage poster titled “Home!” shows a father coming home to crying children. A note is tacked onto a “Votes for Women”

poster that says “Back sometime this evening.”

Antis feared that giving women the right to vote would enfranchise Black citizens. Several anti-suffrage campaign posters and letters from leaders including Pearson reveal the racist views behind the opposition.

“The Truth About the Negro Problem” was one flyer that was circulated by the Nashville antis during the 1920 session that suggested enfranchising women, and therefore Black women, would cause a “Negro majority” that would tilt the vote out of white citizens’ favor.

“The better class of Negros themselves know they are better represented by able white men than they would be by designing politicians of their own race,” the flyer says. “Just as the majority of women themselves feel they are better represented by the fathers of their children than they would be by politically ambitious office-seekers of their own sex.”

37

The antis’ racist propaganda was widespread.

Pearson feared white supremacy would be overthrown if Black women gained the right to vote. In a letter to Tennessee residents, she wrote, “The fate of white civilization in the South may hang on a few votes.”

Though the 15th Amendment granted Black men the right to vote, barriers like poll taxes, literacy tests and other Jim Crow laws kept many from the voting booth. Black women faced those same barriers even after the passage of the 19th Amendment.

Pearson and other antis were interested in the protection of states’ rights, the preservation of family, and women’s moral and spiritual influence.

An undated anti-suffrage petition asked Tennessee women to sign “for the sake of your State and your sex” and cited several reasons for voting no on ratification.

Antis argued that motherhood was more important than politics, saying they trusted their fathers, brothers and husbands to represent them at the ballot box because their fathers and brothers loved them, they had chosen their husbands, and their sons were “what we made them.”

The right to vote wasn’t needed, they argued, because women had higher status and more protection in states where women did not have the right to vote and that they had more “power for good” if they remained non-partisan.

And women’s suffrage would increase taxation and add “undesirable, corrupt and job hunting female politicians to the ranks of the male.”

After the vote In her memoir, Pearson skips the part of the story that didn’t work out for the antis — ignoring the Senate vote for ratification and the dramatic House vote in which two legislators changed their votes at the last minute, tipping the scales.

One hundred years later, we know how the vote played out. Tennessee ratified the 19th Amendment, the result of a 72-year effort. What textbooks fail to tell us is what happened to the antis and Pearson after ratification.

Many Southern anti-suffrage activists went on to exercise their right to vote and become politically engaged, often running against the men who voted to ratify the 19th Amendment. They also engaged in organizations including the League of Women Voters and Daughters of the Confederacy. Some joined groups like the Women’s Ku Klux Klan or participated in the Red Scare.

As for Pearson, she continued teaching, writing and speaking out against suffrage until her death in 1944. She refused to ever vote herself, but still found a way to make her voice heard at many elections, as she wrote in her autobiography: “The Patron of all Monteagle elections for the past (and) until this day (April 20, 1939), nervous and trembling came up to me saying, ‘You ain’t agoing to vote is you — you fit it too long and too hard! Tell us what you want voted and we’ll vote for you!’”

38

10 A group of Tennessee antisuffragists at their headquarters during summer 1920 in Nashville’s Hermitage Hotel

women who changed U.S. politics

By Ryan Poe and Isabel Lohman USA TODAY Network

A

fter decades of suffragettes being dismissed, degraded and jailed, women won the constitutional right to vote with the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920.

But women’s fight to win elections was just starting.

In the 100 years since the amendment, women have shattered glass ceilings at nearly every level of government across the U.S. with the notable exception of president and vice president. And in many cases, they won despite the sexism of their opposition. One of the first women elected in the U.S., Susanna Madora Salter of Argonia, Kansas, had her name added to the ballot by a group of men trying to discredit the local women’s temperance union, according to the University of Kansas Emily Taylor Center for Women & Gender Equity. She became the first female mayor.

There are thousands of women worthy of being included on a list of those who have made significant contributions to U.S. politics over the past 100 years. Here are 10.

TENNESSEE STATE LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES PHOTOS

An illustration by members of the antisuffrage movement.

An anti-suffrage political cartoon titled “America When Feminized.”

Jeannette Rankin

Soledad Chávez de Chacón

After helping secure the right for women to vote in her home state of Montana in 1914, social worker, pacifist and suffragette Jeannette Rankin (1880-1973) set a new goal.

Rankin, a progressive Republican who grew up on a ranch in rural Montana, became the first woman elected to Congress in 1916, four years before the ratification of the 19th Amendment and as the U.S. was debating whether to enter World War I, according to her House of Representatives biography. A staunch pacifist, Rankin opposed the war, despite the political pressures — and paid a political cost.

A victim of redistricting, Rankin lost a third-party bid for a U.S. Senate seat in 1918 and decided against seeking reelection in 1919.

When she returned to the office in 1941-43, Rankin cast the only vote against U.S. involvement in World War II, making her the only representative to vote against both World Wars.

When she died at 93 in 1973, she was weighing another congressional run — this time to oppose the Vietnam War. In addition to her pacifism, Rankin worked to advance the rights of women and expand social programs, both in and outside of her time in public office.

“She was an ardent suffragist,” said Liette Gidlow, an associate professor of history at Wayne State University and a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University.

“And it’s not necessarily remembered this way these days, but Americans’ feelings about being involved in the first World War were very mixed.”

Two years after the ratification of the 19th Amendment, Soledad Chávez de Chacón (1890-1936) became the first Hispanic woman elected to a statewide office.

Chacón, a widely known suffragette who came from a politically connected family in Albuquerque, New Mexico, was reportedly baking a cake when she was surprised with the offer to serve as the Democratic nominee for secretary of state, said Cathleen Cahill, associate history professor at Penn State University and the author of a forthcoming book about the women of color who were part of the suffrage movement.

After securing the approval of her husband and father, Chacón accepted the nomination and was elected in a Democratic sweep in 1922 — even though New Mexico was one of the slowest states to embrace women’s voting rights, only amending the state constitution to allow women to hold political office the year before her victory.

“She is an important first — as a woman, as a Latina or Hispanic woman, and she’s an early woman in New Mexico who serves in public office,” Cahill said.

Chacón added another “first” to her list of achievements in 1924: After the state’s lieutenant governor died unexpectedly and the governor left for the Democratic National Convention in New York, she became the first woman in the U.S. to act as a governor.

1

2

PHOTOS: USA TODAY | LIBRARY OF CONGRESS | WIKIMEDIA

29

Barbara Charline Jordan

5

Suffragists pictured at a 1916 parade, celebrating President Wilson’s support.

Margaret Chase Smith

3

Margaret Chase Smith (1897-1995), the first woman to serve in both houses of Congress, won her most enduring victory in 1948, with the passage of her Women’s Armed Forces Integration Act giving women permanent roles in the U.S. military.

But perhaps her more dramatic contribution to history came a couple of years later, when she became one of the first Republicans to take a public stand against fellow Republican Sen. Joe McCarthy and his persecution of people and institutions he claimed were communist threats.

“The nation sorely needs a Republican victory,” the Maine Republican said in her infamous “Declaration of Conscience” speech in 1950. “But I don’t want to see the Republican Party ride to political victory on the Four Horsemen of Calumny — Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry and Smear. I doubt if the Republican Party could — simply because I don’t believe the American people will uphold any political party that puts political exploitation above national interest.”

“She was tough,” said Kristi Andersen, professor emeritus of political science at Syracuse University. “She held her own, for sure — as most of these people did. Back in the day, you had to be pretty tough — and may still have to be — to get what you wanted.”

Smith served in the House of Representatives from 1940 to 1949, and then in the Senate from 1949 to 1973.

In 1964, Smith became the first woman to be officially considered for nomination for the presidency by a major political party in the U.S., but lost to Sen. Barry Goldwater.

40

Martha Wright Griffiths

4

Martha Wright Griffiths (1912-2003) was a Michigan Democrat who served in the House of Representatives from 1955 to 1975. She was known as the “Mother of the Equal Rights Amendment” and was the first woman to serve on the House’s Ways and Means committee.

“Every year since she entered the House in 1955, she had introduced ERA legislation, only to watch while the bill died in the Judiciary Committee,” said her House of Representatives biography.

She used a discharge petition to bring the bill out of committee and onto the floor for a debate and vote in 1970.

The House passed the ERA, but a Senate amendment stopped the bill in its tracks. Griffith continued to pursue the cause, and both chambers approved the ERA by 1972. The amendment did not get added to the U.S. Constitution because not enough states ratified it.

A former lawyer and judge, Griffiths worked to ensure sex discrimination was listed in Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. After leaving Congress, she served two terms as Michigan lieutenant governor, but was not nominated for a third term because her running mate was concerned about her age, according to her biography.

“She was an advocate of the equal rights amendment, and it was in part due to her leadership that Michigan was one of the first states to ratify the ERA,” Gidlow said.

Patsy Takemoto Mink (1927-2002) served in Congress, representing Hawaii from 1965 to 1977 and again from 1989 until her death in 2002.

Mink was the first woman of color elected to Congress and the first Asian American woman to serve in Congress, according to her House of Representatives biography.

A proponent of gender and racial equity, Mink was one of the authors of Title IX. Originally, she had wanted to study medicine, but several schools rejected her.

Instead, she studied law. Mink’s experiences led her to promote bilingual education, affordable child care and even a universal health care plan.

She also opposed the Vietnam War and later advocated for the Women’s Educational Equity act.

After her death, Title IX was renamed to the “Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act,” according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

Molly Carnes, a physician scientist and professor in University of Wisconsin’s department of medicine, credits Mink’s work for being the reason she got into medical school.

“Title IX has changed the world for women because education is power,” Carnes said. “And Patsy Mink gave women that power.”

Armed with a brilliant legal mind and a teacher’s ability to make the obscure plain, Barbara Jordan (1936–1996) first stepped onto the national stage in 1972.

That year, Jordan became the first elected Black congresswoman from the South.

But she got her political start in Texas, according to her House of Representatives biography. In 1966, after losing two bids to serve in the Texas House, the Houston attorney and teacher became the first Black woman to win election to the Texas Senate.

She was tapped as Senate president pro tempore in 1972 in a testament to her political acumen, and in that position became the first Black woman to act as a governor in the U.S. a few months later.

In Washington, D.C., like in Texas, Jordan showed herself an astute politician. Her list of friends included a fellow Texan, President Lyndon Johnson, who helped her secure a coveted spot on the House Judiciary Committee.

That important seat became even more important in 1974, when the committee considered articles of impeachment against President Richard M. Nixon in connection to the Watergate scandal. Despite her freshman status on the committee, Jordan gave an impassioned opening speech at the hearing that thrust her into the national spotlight. The most memorable line, delivered with fiery indignation: “If the impeachment provision in the Constitution of the United States will not reach the offenses charged here, then perhaps that 18th century Constitution should be abandoned to a 20th century paper shredder.”

Propelled in part by that speech, she became the first woman and the first Black speaker to deliver the keynote at a Democratic National Convention in 1976, and spoke again at the convention in 1988 and 1992, despite health struggles. She died of pneumonia in Texas in 1996.

7

Patsy Takemoto Mink

Shirley Anita Chisholm

6

Shirley Anita Chisholm (1924-2005) was a Democrat who represented New York in the House of Representatives from 1969 to 1983.

She was the first Black woman in Congress and later co-founded the National Political Congress of Black Women, according to the National Women’s History Museum.

She advocated for racial and gender equity and for people. Chisholm argued for federal funding to extend day care hours, better public schooling and the school lunch bill, according to her House of Representatives biography. She also opposed the Vietnam War. In 1972, she ran for president but faced racism and sexism from her colleagues. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus opposed her bid. She was also blocked from televised debates and, after taking legal action, was only only allowed to do one televised speech. Nevertheless, she secured getting her name on 12 primary ballots, earning 10% of the delegates, according to the National Women’s History Museum.

“There would be no Barack Obama without Shirley Chisholm,” Gidlow said. “There would be no Hillary Clinton without Shirley Chisholm.”

41

Eleanor Holmes Norton

8

Eleanor Holmes Norton (1937- ) has represented the District of Columbia in Congress since 1991. Before that, she was the first woman to chair the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, according to her official biography.

She is also a Georgetown Law professor and former assistant legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union. While at the EEOC, she “issued the first set of regulations from the EEOC about sexual harassment that helped to make the argument that sexual harassment was a violation of a federal civil rights laws,” Gidlow said.

A defender of the First Amendment, Norton represented the racist National States’ Rights Party in the Supreme Court.

She told the Bar Report in 1997 that “you don’t know whether the First Amendment is alive and well until it is tested by people with despicable ideas.”

Norton opposed the apartheid, advocates for D.C. statehood and supports reproductive freedom. While she does not have voting privileges in Congress, she has worked to improve the lives of District of Columbia residents by increasing benefits for high school graduates and creating a homebuyer tax credit, according to her website.

Susan Low Bloch, a law professor at Georgetown and a D.C. resident, said Norton’s efforts to give the district voting rights in Congress is especially meaningful to her, personally.

“As a resident of D.C., I’m always amazed when I tell people that we can’t vote, and I see their faces look totally incredulous,” Bloch said. “I’m hoping that Eleanor’s legacy will be that we get the vote.”

42

YEARS IN PURSUIT 100 of VOTING RIGHTS

Nancy Pelosi

10

Hillary Rodham Clinton

9

Hillary Rodham Clinton (1947- ) is a former secretary of state, New York senator, First Lady and presidential nominee.

As First Lady, she worked on health care reform, children’s issues and women’s rights, according to her Senate biography. As a lawmaker, she worked to increase health care access, secure independent energy resources and improve security. She was the first woman to be a New York senator and the first New Yorker to serve on the Senate Armed Services Committee. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, she advocated for federal funding to rebuild New York.

Clinton ran for the Democratic nomination for president twice, with her second bid making her the first woman chosen to be the presidential candidate of a major party. During her campaign, she faced criticism over her use of a private email server and her handling of an attack at a U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya.

“In some ways, her candidacy was the culmination of women struggling over generations to find a place in public life,” Gidlow said.

“She’s a controversial figure today, maybe a divisive figure, but a great many women who broke barriers in politics were controversial. And, over time, their reputations have grown. So, I think we’ll need to take a long-view look on Hillary Clinton.”

Few politicians have been as revered — or as repudiated — as California’s U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who became the first woman to be elected speaker of the House in 2007.

Born in Baltimore in 1940, Pelosi was the daughter of Thomas D’Alesandro Jr., the city’s congressman and then three-term mayor, and of Italian immigrant Annunciata Lombardi D’Alesandro. But Pelosi didn’t follow in the family tradition immediately; she had five children before starting her political ascent in California, the home state of husband Paul, eventually rising from a San Francisco public libraries commissioner to state Democratic party chair thanks in part to her knack for pulling together the various factions that make up the party. She was elected to the House in 1987.

As speaker, she was instrumental in the House’s 2010 passage of Democratic President Barack Obama’s signature health care legislation, the Affordable Care Act. More recently, Pelosi has become a constant thorn in the side of Republican President Donald Trump, trading barbs with him in the media and contesting his agenda at every turn, making her a hero to some Democrats and a Bogeyman to some Republicans. Under her leadership, the House brought articles of impeachment against Trump in 2019 after he pressured Ukraine to investigate allegations of corruption against a political rival, former vice president and 2020 Democratic presidential nominee-apparent Joe Biden.

“She has been a really clever person politically,” Andersen said, referencing Pelosi’s political and policy successes during the Trump administration.

Last year, Pelosi also became the first speaker in six decades to reclaim the gavel after losing it. In a CNN profile at the time, she issued a challenge to other women: “I take some, for want of a better term, badass glee in just saying, ‘Women, you know how to get it done, know your power.’”

First women’s suffrage petition is presented to UK Parliament

By Allie Clouse USA TODAY Network

Women in the United States won the right to vote in 1920, but the fight for that victory began long before the 19th Amendment was ratified.

The fight for equality in the ballot box began generations earlier, thanks to the voices and efforts of thousands of women across the globe.

As we celebrate the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, here’s a look at some of the most critical moments in the fight for suffrage across a century.

On Aug. 3, 1832, United Kingdom Parliament member Henry Hunt presents the first petition asking for votes for women on behalf of Mary Smith, “a lady of rank and fortune” from Stanmore, Yorkshire.

Smith argues that she paid taxes and was subject to the rule of law, so she did not see why she could not vote. The petition tabled, but it is recognized as the beginning of the fight for women’s suffrage in Britain.

“She could see no good reason for the exclusion of women from social rights, while the highest office of the State, that of the Crown, was open to the inheritance of females, and, as we understood, the petition expressed her indignation against those vile wretches who would not marry, and yet would exclude females from a share in legislation. The prayer of the petition was, that every unmarried female, possessing the necessary pecuniary qualification, should be entitled to vote for Members of Parliament,” according to Parliamentary minutes of Hunt’s petition.

1832

Seneca Falls Convention The first women’s rights convention is held in Seneca Falls, New York. There, 68 women and 32 men signed a “Declaration of Sentiments,” written by suffragist leader Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

The document outlines grievances and set the agenda for the women’s

rights movement. The group adopts 12 resolutions calling for equal treatment of women and men under the law and voting rights for women.

“The document laid out many key objectives in addition to women’s suffrage, including educational and employment equality. It created a blueprint for the modern women’s movement that still influences the mission of activists even today,” says Dr. Kelly Marino, assistant lecturer of History and Coordinator of Women’s, Gender and Sexualtiy Studies, Sacred Heart University, Fairfield, Connecticut.

1848

The first National Women’s Rights Convention The first National Women’s Rights Convention is held in Worcester, Massachusetts. More than 1,000 participants attend, including Frederick Douglass, Paulina Wright Davis, Abby Kelley Foster, William Lloyd Garrison, Lucy Stone and Sojourner Truth. It was here that suffragists formed an alliance with the Abolitionist Movement.

“Seneca Falls sparked discussion, but did not produce any organized activity. It was not clear in its aftermath whether or not there was a national constituency ready to take up the cause. The Worcester meeting answered this question. The response to its Call, which summoned all who wanted to see a woman’s rights movement, as well as the positive reaction to

1850

its published proceedings both at home and in Europe showed that a critical mass of women, and some men, were ready,” according to the Worcester Women’s History Project.

The American Equal Rights Association is formed After the Civil War, the 11th National Women’s Rights Convention is called. The convention votes to transform itself into a new organization called the American Equal Rights Association that would advocate for universal suffrage no matter race or gender. They petition Congress to remove those discriminations from the law.

“The object of this Association is to secure Equal Rights to all American citizens, especially the Right of Suffrage, irrespective of race, color or sex. American Democracy has interpreted the Declaration of Independence in the interest of slavery, restricting suffrage and citizenship to a white male minority. The black man is still denied the crowning right of citizenship, even in the nominally free States, though the fires of civil war have melted the chains of chattelism, and a hundred battle-fields attest his courage and patriotism. Half our population are disfranchised on the ground of sex; and though compelled to obey the law and taxed to support the government, they have no voice in the legislation of the country,” according to proceedings of the first anniversary of the American Equal Rights Association, 1867.

1866

43

The 14th Amendment is ratified The 14th Amendment is adopted, granting citizenship and the right to life, liberty and property to people born or naturalized in the United States — including former slaves.

“The insertion of the word ‘male’ into the Constitution and the enfranchisement of African American men presented new challenges for women’s rights activists. For the first time, the Constitution asserted that men — not women — had the right to vote. Previously, only state laws restricted voting rights to men. Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote, ‘If that word ‘male’ be inserted, it will take us a century at least to get it out.’” according to the National Women’s History Museum.

1868

Black men gain the right to vote under the 15th Amendment The suffrage movement splits because some of its leaders, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, refuse to support the ratification of the 15th Amendment, arguing that women and Black men should be enfranchised at the same time.

Abolitionist and longtime suffrage supporter Frederick Douglass and other suffragists choose to support the 15th Amendment and the immediate need for enfranchisement of Black men.

“Activists bitterly fought about whether to support or oppose the 15th Amendment. Stanton and Susan B. Anthony objected to the new law.

They wanted women to be included with Black men. Others — like Lucy Stone — supported the amendment as it was. Stone believed that women would win the vote soon. The emphasis on voting during the 1860s led women’s rights activists to focus on woman suffrage. The two sides established two rival national organizations that aimed to win women the vote,” according to Allison Lange, Ph.D., National Women’s History Museum.

1870

Prominent suffragists are arrested trying to vote Sixteen women, including Susan B. Anthony, are arrested for illegally voting. Sojourner Truth appears at a polling booth in Battle Creek, Michigan, demanding a ballot to vote; she is turned away.

The year before, “in 1871, Victoria Woodhull

44

became the first woman to testify before Congress. A beautiful and charming if controversial suffragist, she told the Judiciary Committee that the 14th and 15th Amendments had in effect already enfranchised women. All that remained was for them to show up at the polls and register. It was called The New Departure, and soon women all over the country — Susan B. Anthony in New York; Mary Ann Shadd Cary, a Black activist in Washington D.C.; and Virginia Minor in St. Louis — showed up to vote.

Minor’s husband Francis, a lawyer, took the case all the way to the Supreme Court, where the justices ruled that voting procedures were not a province of the federal government, but of the states.” according to historian Johanna Neuman, author of “And Yet They Persisted: How American Women Won the Right to Vote.”

1872

A suffrage amendment is proposed in Congress A women’s suffrage amendment is proposed in the U.S. Congress. When the 19th Amendment passes 41 years later, it borrows the exact wording from this 1878 amendment.

After what’s known as the “Susan B. Anthony Amendment” is proposed, the Senate refers the plea to the Committee on Privileges and Elections. The next day, suffragists testify for the first time in front of senators on the issue of suffrage.

“California Senator Aaron Sargent introduced a woman suffrage amendment identical to the future 19th Amendment. Suffragists quickly gained congressional attention to their cause, but winning its endorsement took much longer. For 42 years, the measure was introduced at every session of Congress but was ignored or voted down.

It finally passed Congress in 1919 and went to the states for ratification,” according to the National Archives’ “Rightfully Hers: American Women and the Vote” exhibit.

1878

Britain’s Local Government Act passes The Local Government Act, which allows single and married women to vote in elections for county and borough councils, passes in Britain.

1894

“Women’s Sunday” On a Sunday in June 1908, approximately 250,000 people from across Britain gather at Hyde Park, London, making it the largest-ever political rally in the city. Ignored

by Prime Minister Asquith, suffragists turn to smashing windows on Downing Street, throwing stones with written pleas tied to them, and tying themselves to railings.

“Specially chartered trains transported thousands of Suffragettes from all over Britain to march in seven processions through central London to a rally in Hyde Park.

The highly choreographed demonstration attracted a crowd of up to 300,000 drawn by the colourful spectacle of the delegates dressed in the suffragette tricolour and carrying over seven hundred embroidered banners. ‘Never,’ reported the Daily Chronicle, ‘has so vast a throng gathered in London to witness a parade of political forces,’” according to the Museum of London archives.

1908

Suffragists go on hunger strikes in Britain Marion Wallace Dunlop becomes the first imprisoned suffragette to go on a hunger strike.

Later that year, prisons began to force-feed inmates on hunger strike.

“Some of the people who campaigned for women’s right to vote used militant tactics like attacking property, which often led to prison sentences. Hunger striking was a dangerous form of non-violent protest that could be carried out from inside prison,” according to the Museum of London’s Votes for Women collection.

1909

Women’s suffrage supported by major political party Theodore Roosevelt’s Bull Moose Party supports women’s suffrage. It is the first time the cause is supported at the national level by a major political party in the U.S. “I am myself a believer in woman suffrage. I do not believe with those who feel that this would make women shirk their essential duties. My experience has been that many of those women who do shirk them are against the suffrage,” according to a letter from Theodore Roosevelt to suffragist Jeanne de Finey.

1912

Suffrage parade held in Washington Suffragists Alice Paul and Lucy Burns organize a parade down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, the first major suffrage spectacle organized by the National American Woman Suffrage Association.

“The Great Suffrage Parade of 1913 was the first civil rights march to use the nation’s capital as a backdrop. Timed to coincide with the inauguration of Woodrow Wilson, the 1913 march put male politicians on notice that they ignored suffrage at their peril,” said Rebecca Boggs Roberts, author of “Suffragists in Washington, DC: The 1913 Parade and the Fight for the Vote.”

1913

NYC suffrage parade has historic turnout Forty thousand people march in a New York City suffrage parade. Many women are dressed in white and carry placards with the names of the states they represent.

“Harriot Stanton Blatch, youngest daughter of suffrage matriarch Elizabeth Cady Stanton, was the parade’s inspiration. After 20 years of living in England as the wife of a British businessman, she had returned to America shocked that the movement had fallen into a ‘rut deeper and ever deeper.’ She imported many of the tactics of the British movement — including parades, with an attention to presentation and appearance. Suffragists dressed in white — Macy’s was headquarters for suffrage memorabilia — with sashes declaring their affiliation. For the 1912 parade — where a record 1,000 men joined the parade for the Men’s League for Woman Suffrage — she ordered marchers to stand ‘head erect and shoulders back,’” wrote historian Johanna Neuman, author of “Gilded Suffragists: The New York Socialites Who Fought for Women’s Right to Vote.”

1915

First U.S. congresswoman elected Jeannette Rankin is elected to represent Montana in the U.S. House of Representatives, making her the first woman elected to U.S. Congress. She takes office in March 1917.

“Jeannette Rankin’s life was filled with extraordinary achievements: She was the

first woman elected to Congress, one of the few suffragists elected to Congress, and the only member of Congress to vote against U.S. participation in both World War I and World War II. ‘I may be the first woman member of Congress,’ she observed upon her election in 1916. ‘But I won’t be the last,’” according to the U.S. House of Representatives archives.

1916

Arrest leads to mistreatment, hunger strike Thirty-three women are arrested while protesting in front of the White House on charges of obstructing sidewalk traffic. During their jail time, the suffragists endure beatings and mistreatment. They are later released in response to public outcry and an inability to stop the National Woman’s Party picketers’ hunger strike.

“Every activist who stands in Lafayette Square to protest the actions (or inaction) of a president literally walks in the footsteps of the suffragists. Picketing the White House was their idea, and, despite their arrests on bogus charges of ‘obstructing the traffic on the sidewalk,’ what they did was totally legal, as it is today,” says Boggs Roberts.

1917

Suffrage seems likely after World War I On the morning of Sept. 30, 1918, President Woodrow Wilson delivers a speech in the Senate Chamber. He asks senators to pass the constitutional amendment providing for women’s suffrage after World War I, stating that the nation was at war and “This war could not have been fought ... (without) the services of ... women.”

“World War I marked an important turning point for women’s suffrage campaigns both in the United States and the United Kingdom. In the United States, the wartime activism of the National American Woman Suffrage Association to support the homefront, as well as the controversial demonstrations staged by the National Woman’s Party in Washington, D.C., attracted new media attention and created the necessary

1918

public and political pressure to cause government leaders, such as Wilson, to act. Wilson’s conversation to suffrage advocacy was a crucial step toward national legislative change,” said Marino of Sacred Heart University.

U.S. Senate passes the 19th Amendment The Senate finally passes the 19th Amendment and the state ratification process begins.

“After so many years of fighting for their rights, suffrage activists in the gallery and across the nation found this final vote to be almost mundane. In a bipartisan effort, senators approved the national suffrage amendment with two votes to spare, 56 to 25. A few minutes later, Vice President Thomas Marshall joined prominent suffragists for a signing ceremony in his office in the Capitol. The amendment had passed a major hurdle; now it would go to the states for ratification,” according to the U.S. Senate Women’s Suffrage Centennial.

1919

The 19th Amendment is ratified Three-quarters of the state legislatures ratify the 19th Amendment once Tennessee ratifies it in mid-August. The amendment becomes law, giving women the right to vote. Of course, the battle was not over. Black women were still turned away from the ballot box for many more decades. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlawed poll taxes and literacy tests, but barriers still remain.

“When Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the amendment on Aug. 18, 1920, the amendment was adopted. While decades of struggle to include African Americans and other minority women in the promise of voting rights remained, the face of the American electorate had changed forever,” according to the National Archives’ “Rightfully Hers: American Women and the Vote” exhibit

1920

Suffrage passes in Britain The Representation of the People Act entitles everyone, man or woman, older than 21 to vote.

1928 45

THE NEXT

WOMEN’S MOVEMENT IS NOW Congresswomen are recognized by President Donald Trump as he delivers the State of the Union address in 2019. The white they wear is meant to honor the women’s suffrage movement that led to the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920. JASPER COLT / USA TODAY

T

By Allie Clouse USA TODAY Network

he relationship between women of color and women’s rights movements has always been “complicated,” said Patrick Grzanka, associate professor of psychology at the University of Tennessee.

As America celebrates the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, it’s more important than ever to understand the role women of color played in the fight for suffrage, their exclusion within the movement and how the women’s rights battles of today and tomorrow can be more inclusive.

“A lot of the advancements that were

46

made were made at the cost of solidarity across races,” said Jana Morgan, a political science professor at the University of Tennessee. “I think a recognition that dividing ourselves up does not help to overcome systems of entrenched power is crucial right now.”

In the mid-1800s, women and African American abolitionists were at the forefront of the early fight for suffrage.

Together, at the Seneca Falls Convention, widely considered to be the first women’s rights meeting, they created the Declaration of Sentiments, a list of agreed-upon goals to gain equal rights for everyone.

But by the 1860s, the suffrage movement divided itself into those who supported efforts to ratify the 15th Amendment, which granted Black men the right to vote but did not include women, and the suffragists

— like leaders Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton — who chose to focus solely on the enfranchisement of women.

And the passage of the 19th Amendment didn’t result in voting rights for all women. Women of color would face barriers to voting for decades to come.

“The movement shifted towards what today we might call ‘single-axis politics,’ a model that really privileged the prototypical subject of voting rights, and that was the white woman,” Grzanka said.

“So, when women’s issues came to the forefront, a lot of other people and issues — specifically racism and white supremacy — got pushed to the sidelines as a result.”

This wasn’t the first or last time people of color and their rights would be abandoned to secure freedoms for other groups, particularly by white people.

‘They have solutions’ Despite the historical record of women’s movements silencing the voices of people of color, experts agree that now is the time to learn from past mistakes and embrace a more diverse, inclusive movement.

Lee Ann Banaszak, head of Penn State’s Department of Political Science and professor of political science and women’s, gender and sexuality studies, said America is in the midst of a new women’s movement.

“There’s larger hope today than there ever was 100 years ago that there will be a wide agenda looking at issues important to all women,” Banaszak said. “I do think that there has been a lot of learning among feminists and within the women’s movement that unity and diversity are really important. That was something the suffrage movement just didn’t get.”

And women of color are advancing the fight for rights by building their own organizations.

Black Lives Matter, a network seeking justice for violence inflicted on Black communities, was founded by three Black women — Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi — in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman for the murder of Trayvon Martin in 2012.

Fair Fight, an organization that seeks to end voter suppression, was started by Stacey Abrams to advocate for election reform.

And Me Too, meant to help young women of color who have survived sexual violence, became a worldwide movement after activist Tarana Burke bravely told her story using #metoo.

“I think that we need to defer to the experiences and expertise of women of color right now around political organizing and the lived experience of disenfranchisement and the solutions,” Grzanka said. “They are the ones who are articulating the struggles of people across the country, and they have solutions.”

Doing the work All these founders have succeeded in building a grassroots movement on social media and beyond, propelling Black Lives Matter and Me Too beyond a hashtag into foundations getting work done.

Building that social media movement and changing hearts and minds is no easy feat. Algorithms are built to show users information they agree with.

“We can reach lots of people very quickly

without much effort online, but what does happen is the world is much more divided as a result of that social media,” Banaszak said.

It takes intentional and persistent work for movements to be ready to seize openings when the time is right.

“Successful mobilization requires both the behind-the-scenes, slow growth of building organizations and being prepared to jump at opportunities when they present themselves,” Morgan said.

New generation of leaders Women of color have been left out of conversations about their own rights for centuries, but the recent rise in women of color holding office — women of color in Congress, both House and Senate, reached an all-time high of 47 in 2018 — is spreading hope that they will finally have their voices heard.

“What the suffrage movement is now remembered for in women’s history is who it excluded,” Grzanka said. “I hope that the next generation of voting rights activism will be remembered for who it included.”

Some of the most notable elects included Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Abby Finkenauer, who were both 29 when they won their seats, making them the youngest women elected to Congress; Deb Haaland and Sharice Davids, who are the first Native American women elected to Congress; and Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, who are the first Muslim women elected to Congress.

“Right now, we’re seeing some of the most vocal advocates both within government and outside of government being women of color, who are demanding that issues are brought to bear,” Grzanka said.

A 2019 report that examined the influence of women of color who voted in the 2018 midterm elections and was published by the Asian American and Pacific Islander Civic Engagement Fund and Groundswell Fund agrees.

Turnout among women of color at the polls increased 37% (48% among Asian American and Pacific Islander women, 28% among Black women and 51% among Latinas) compared to 2016.

“We have to continue to reform and challenge the inequalities that are baked into our political system in order to accomplish what we hope democracy can bring,” Morgan said. “At its best, democracy makes a better society for everybody.”

Black Lives Matter supporters hold their signs up while speakers talk at a Black Lives Matter rally at the International Friendship Bell in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, June 2, 2020. CAITLYN JORDAN / KNOXVILLE NEWS SENTINEL

Democratic Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams is pictured speaking to supporters at her election night headquarters in Atlanta in 2018. TAMI CHAPPELL, EPA-EFE

47

FULL PAGE AD