Long before President Woodrow Wilson delivered his speech on the Senate floor on September 30, 1918, urging passage of a constitutional amendment for women’s suffrage, Black and White women were on the front lines, marching for the right to vote. President Wilson said, speaking about WWI, “This war could not have been fought…[without] the services of …women.”
Black women in the suffrage movement looked at the right to vote as the unfinished business of Reconstruction. Many Black women in the suffrage movement were highly educated, serving as teachers, authors, publishers, and clubwomen. They wanted a seat at the table, indicating that if education qualifies White women to vote, then Black educated women are qualified.
One of the first to speak up for women’s rights was Sojourner Truth (1797-1883), whose iconic 1851 “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio, is remembered for highlighting the injustice of exclusion due to both racism and sexism. Sojourner framed women’s rights as a moral issue tied to human dignity.
The importance of family ties made women’s rights possible, as Harriet Forten Purvis (1810-1875), whose wealthy, free Black family supported the abolitionist movement and women’s suffrage in Philadelphia. Harriet’s family (James Forten, 1766-1842) had significant influence in Philadelphia’s free Black society, along with her husband’s family, which provided the funds to support the suffrage movement and the influence needed to sustain it.
Author, poet, and lecturer Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825-1911) spoke at suffrage conventions, arguing that Black women needed the vote even more than white women. Frances argued that Black women were citizens under the 14th and 15th Amendments but were denied full political participation.
Charlotte Forten Grimke (1837-1914) discovered that the predominantly white suffrage movement often marginalized Black efforts, so she became involved in the National Association of Colored Women (1896). The association’s motto was “Lifting as We Climb.”
Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin (1842-1924) was the editor of the Women’s Era and one of the founders of the American Women Suffrage Association. She felt that the Civil War amendments were incomplete without giving the right to vote to Black women.
Mary Church Terrell (1863-1954) was the co-founder/first president of the National Association of Colored Women. She lectured nationwide on suffrage. She argued that the right to vote would empower women to influence their economic survival.
President Wilson’s push for the vote would fall short by two votes on October 1, 1918. But finally, on August 18, 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution was passed, giving women the right to vote. Black and White women fought for suffrage alongside family members, friends, and associations to make this amendment possible and to uphold the truth that democracy requires the inclusion of all citizens.
(top: Sojourner Truth, Harriet Forten Purvis, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper)
(bottom: Charlotte Forten Purvis, Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, Mary Church Terrell)