Women's Suffrage in Black and White

Summary

The presentation led by National Park Ranger Susan Philpott delves into the complex history of the women's suffrage movement with a focus on Texas. Hosted by the library, the talk highlights the struggles and triumphs of women, particularly women of color, who fought for the right to vote. Ranger Philpott elaborates on the historical backdrop of the Belmont-Paul Women's Equality National Monument and its role in advocating for women's suffrage, while revealing the racial tensions and segregation issues within the movement. Key figures such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Ida B. Wells-Barnett, among others, are discussed with emphasis on their contributions and challenges faced during the movement's extensive history. Through these narratives, the talk emphasizes the intersectional struggles of race and gender that have shaped the suffrage movement historically and continue to resonate today.

Highlights

• Susan Philpott shares a comprehensive history of the suffrage movement in Texas, accentuating the racial and gender intersection. 🌟
• Black women suffragists like Ida B. Wells-Barnett defied segregative norms to actively participate in key suffrage events. ✊
• Iconic suffragists Stanton and Anthony's controversial stances on racial issues cast a shadow over their legacy. 🤔
• Belmont-Paul Women's Equality National Monument's exhibits uncover sobering truths about suffrage historiography. 🖼️
• Efforts continue to diversify and update suffrage exhibitions, honoring contributions from all women. 🔄

Key Takeaways

• Ida B. Wells-Barnett courageously defied segregation efforts in the 1913 suffrage parade, asserting her place among her fellow suffragists. 💪
• The suffrage movement's history often overlooked the integral roles played by Black women like Sojourner Truth and Mary Church Terrell. 📖
• Racial tensions within the movement highlighted the dual fight against sexism and racism by women of color. ⚖️
• Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, while pivotal, held exclusionary views on racial equality in the suffrage movement. 🚫
• The National Woman's Party and the Belmont-Paul Women's Equality National Monument played crucial roles in highlighting women's suffrage, despite their predominant focus on white women's stories. 🏛️

Overview

This engaging talk by National Park Ranger Susan Philpott explores the profound complexities embedded in the women's suffrage movement, particularly within the framework of Texas. Her insights dive deep into the intersection of race and gender, highlighting the pivotal yet often overlooked roles of Black women in the struggle for voting rights, from trailblazing leaders like Ida B. Wells-Barnett to grassroots activists. Philpott weaves a vivid tapestry of historical narratives that underscore not just the achievements but also the racial and societal obstacles faced by suffragists.

In shedding light on the Belmont-Paul Women's Equality National Monument, Philpott highlights the institution's dedication to narrating women's suffrage, albeit with a predominant focus on white experiences. She candidly addresses the segregation and racial biases within the movement, urging a reassessment of how history is told and remembered. Through a recount of the monument's exhibits, Philpott emphasizes the need for a more inclusive retelling of suffrage stories, one that celebrates the diverse contributions of all women.

With a nod to historical figures like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Mary Church Terrell, the presentation questions and critiques the established narratives of the suffrage movement. It sheds light on the courage and determination of women who advocated for change, while also recognizing the complex interplay of bigotry and solidarity within the fight for equality. Philpott's narrative is a rallying call to honor the entire spectrum of voices that shaped the women's suffrage movement, promising a more holistic and equitable representation in future exhibits.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:30: Introduction The introduction begins with a welcome message to the audience for the closing program of an exhibit titled 'Citizens at Last: The Women's Suffrage Movement in Texas' being held at the library. It informs that the exhibit will remain open until May 10th and encourages visitors to explore the display and utilize the reading materials available. Additionally, it highlights the option to engage with the program through social media.
• 01:30 - 03:00: Introduction of Susan Philpott The chapter introduces Susan Philpott in a setting where attendees are encouraged to engage with the display at LSC's Fair Library. Participants are motivated to take selfies with the display and tag the library on social media, using the handle @LSCsFairLibrary, to enhance engagement. The speaker also promotes following the National Park Service and the Belmont-Paul Equality Monument on social media for further involvement. This session is recorded for inclusion in the library's Women's Suffrage Guide and will be accessible on their YouTube channel.
• 03:00 - 05:30: Belmont-Paul Women's Equality Monument The chapter introduces a session where participants are invited to ask questions and make comments through a Q&A or chat box, with a reminder to keep the discourse respectful. The focus then shifts to National Park Ranger Susan Philpott, who is set to present on the Belmont-Paul Women's Equality Monument, emphasizing the intersectional narrative associated with it.
• 05:30 - 09:00: History of Women's Suffrage Movement The chapter explores the challenges faced by suffragists who were battling against both sexism and racism while advocating for women's right to vote. Susan, a park ranger at the Belmont Paul Women's Equality National Monument, begins a detailed discussion, shedding light on this historical struggle.
• 09:00 - 13:00: Role of Black Women in Suffrage Movement The chapter discusses the historic 200-year-old house located in Washington DC, specifically on the corner of Constitution Avenue and 2nd Street Northeast on Capitol Hill. The chapter highlights the house's proximity to significant landmarks, such as the Hart Senate Office Building, where many senators have their offices overlooking the property's courtyard. The location provides a geographical context for the chapter's focus, which is likely tied to the historical significance of the area in relation to the role of black women in the suffrage movement.
• 13:00 - 18:00: 14th and 15th Amendments The chapter provides a glimpse into the heart of Washington D.C., highlighting significant landmarks such as the U.S. Capitol and the U.S. Supreme Court. It emphasizes the proximity of the setting to major governmental bodies, indicating a location right on Constitution Avenue. The narrative also introduces the headquarters of the National Women's Party, founded by Alice Paul, which is part of the National Park Service and situated in this historic area.
• 18:00 - 25:00: Split in the Suffrage Movement The chapter discusses the strategic placement and historical significance of the house where the National Women's Party resided for over 90 years. Located in the heart of power, the organization was dedicated to fighting for women's equality. Initially functioning as lobbyists, the party transitioned in 1997 into an educational nonprofit entity, continuing their legacy in a different capacity.
• 25:00 - 29:00: State Suffrage Campaigns This chapter discusses the efforts and initiatives related to state suffrage campaigns, focusing on the women's struggle for the right to vote. It highlights the involvement of the National Park Service since 2016 in narrating and preserving this important historical narrative. The National Women's Party's role in creating exhibits about this struggle is also emphasized, with further interpretation and storytelling around these exhibits being a central theme.
• 29:00 - 35:00: Southern Racism in Suffrage Movement The chapter discusses the renovation of a historic space previously occupied by the National Women's Party, which has since disbanded. The exhibit used to showcase elements related to the suffrage movement, but these collections have been temporarily removed for renovations.
• 35:00 - 41:00: 20th Century Suffrage Efforts The chapter, titled '20th Century Suffrage Efforts', discusses the origins and significant moments in the history of women's fight for the right to vote. It begins with a focus on early activists such as Elizabeth Katie Stanton, highlighting her role in organizing the Seneca Falls Convention in July 1848, which was a pivotal event where women convened to discuss and advocate for women's rights. The chapter aims to explore innovative ways to narrate this historical struggle.
• 41:00 - 46:00: 1913 Suffrage Parade The chapter titled "1913 Suffrage Parade" begins by introducing Susan B. Anthony, a prominent figure known for her lifelong dedication to women's rights, especially the right to vote. Although the narrative at this site often highlights later generations of suffragists who fought for the 19th amendment, the story starts by acknowledging these foundational figures in the women's suffrage movement.
• 46:00 - 52:00: Involvement of Black Women in 1913 Parade This chapter provides an overview of more than seventy years of history, focusing on key highlights or moments. The primary emphasis is on the voices and perspectives of individuals actively involved in the movement being discussed. The narrative is framed by the National Women's Party, which seems to have curated the narrative through images and exhibits, prominently featuring photographs relevant to the movement described in the chapter.
• 52:00 - 58:00: Later Suffrage Movement and Exhibits The chapter discusses how historical representations of the women's suffrage movement have predominantly featured upper class white women, which presents a skewed interpretation of the true fight for women's suffrage. The intention now is to offer a more accurate portrayal of the suffrage movement's diverse participants. This effort counters the narrowly focused narratives often presented in history books, which likely resulted from the perspectives of their writers.
• 58:00 - 66:00: Mary Church Terrell and Black Women's Activism This chapter delves into the historical narratives shaped by prominent white women such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Matilda Gage, and Ida Husted Harper. It acknowledges their contributions to documenting women's history, emphasizing the importance of self-recorded history while also recognizing the potential bias of highlighting predominantly positive aspects.
• 66:00 - 72:00: Black Women Suffragists in Texas The chapter discusses how historical narratives often excluded certain groups, specifically mentioning how mainstream history ignored individuals that were less liked or agreed with by dominant groups. This has particularly affected the recognition of Black women suffragists in Texas. The 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment's ratification in 2020 sparked a resurgence in interest and scholarship about these overlooked contributions, highlighting the importance of revisiting and revising historical narratives to include marginalized voices.
• 72:00 - 81:00: Leadership and Racism in Suffrage Movement The chapter focuses on the intersection of leadership and racism within the women's suffrage movement. It explores how historical narratives have been constructed and highlights the importance of telling a more nuanced story, particularly concerning key events like the women's rights convention. The 'Declaration of Sentiments,' a crucial document from the convention, is emphasized as a primary source that marks one of the earliest moments in the fight for women's suffrage.
• 81:00 - 87:00: Alice Paul and Her Stance on Race Issues The chapter focuses on the historical context of women's rights, specifically highlighting Alice Paul and her stance on race issues. It reflects on the radical ideas from 1848 concerning gender inequality, noting that the declaration that 'all men and women are created equal' emerged as a response to a long history of systemic oppression against women. Alice Paul's contributions are situated within this broader struggle for equality, although her specific stance on race matters during this era is to be explored in detail.
• 87:00 - 96:00: Current and Future Exhibits at Belmont-Paul The chapter discusses the ways that 'mankind has established a tyranny over women,' as articulated by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and her contemporaries. One notable aspect highlighted is women's lack of voting rights, which eventually became a core focus of the suffrage movement. However, the list of grievances extends beyond this single issue, reflecting broader struggles for women's rights. The chapter appears to focus on the historical context surrounding these grievances and the ongoing efforts to address them, as symbolized by exhibits at the Belmont-Paul site.
• 96:00 - 100:00: Conclusion and Q&A In the conclusion and Q&A section, the discussion highlights how women felt deprived of rights that even the most marginalized men, including those who are native and foreigners, were granted. This reinforces the acknowledgment of an existing social, political, and economic hierarchy, which some of the women fighting for their rights recognized but did not necessarily seek to challenge universally.

Women's Suffrage in Black and White Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 and we're rolling good morning and thank you for joining us for the closing program in support of the citizens at last the women's suffrage movement in texas exhibit we have on display in the library the exhibit will be on display at the library until may 10th so please stop by and view the display grab one of our books on the display and one of our reading guides if social media is your thing please
• 00:30 - 01:00 take a selfie with the display and tag at lsc's fair library um if if that's your thing and you can find us on most social platforms by searching for the handle at lsc's fair library and i also want to encourage you to follow the national park services service on social media and the belmont paul equality monument this program is being recorded for the library's women's suffrage guide and it will be available on our youtube channel
• 01:00 - 01:30 if you have any questions or comments please type them into the q a or the chat box and we will address them at the end of the presentation as a gentle reminder please keep all comments and questions courteous and civil we're here to learn not to debate any facts um but okay so now i am honored to introduce our national park ranger susan philpott of the belmont paul women's equality monument and ranger philpott is here to share the intersectional story
• 01:30 - 02:00 of suffragists who were struggling against sexism and racism while also fighting for the right to vote welcome susan thank you so much regina hello everybody well i'm going to start by sharing my screen here and i am as regina mentioned a park ranger at the belmont paul women's equality national monument which i know is kind of a a a mouthful there
• 02:00 - 02:30 so we are a 200 year old house in washington dc this is a picture of it here we're on the corner of constitution avenue and 2nd street northeast down in washington dc right on capitol hill that white building you see in the background there is the heart senate office building so a bunch of senators have their offices looking out over our courtyard just a little map to give you a sense of where we are if you're familiar with
• 02:30 - 03:00 washington d.c you can see on the map here the u.s capitol the u.s supreme court and then this is us just right across constitution avenue so we look right at the side of the supreme court so um right in the heart of um of national government there and we are a part of the national park service because this house was the headquarters of the national women's party founded by alice paul and you're looking at an interior
• 03:00 - 03:30 shot of the um of the house now which as you can see um is a museum for um over 90 years uh the national women's party has been in this spot deliberately right there in the heart of power and for a long time they were an organization that fought for women's equality they were lobbyists and and um uh in starting in 1997 though they became an educational nonprofit so keeping the
• 03:30 - 04:00 mission going by telling the story and then the national park service came in in 2016 and so we've been really happy to share with them in and telling the story particularly the story we tell in this space is about women's struggle for the right to vote or suffrage the national women's party created the exhibits and we came in and began interpreting those exhibits and so i'm going to be showing you some
• 04:00 - 04:30 pictures of those exhibits but also things that aren't there and actually let me move back one i should say this doesn't actually look like this right now because the house itself is under renovation and so we've taken all the the collections out um the national women's party no longer exists so when we come back into this space um we really are looking at uh finding
• 04:30 - 05:00 new and better ways to tell this story a lot of people start the history of the fight for women's right to vote with some of the founding mothers like you see here a bust of elizabeth katie stanton who organized the seneca falls one of the organizers of the seneca falls convention women's rights getting people together for the purpose of women talking about women's rights in july 1848
• 05:00 - 05:30 and also you're looking at the other side of the the hallway now uh people are usually pretty familiar here with with this woman here susan b anthony who spent her whole life fighting for women's rights particularly the right to vote vote although at our site we really kind of tell the story of later generations of suffragists fighting particularly for the 19th amendment but for the purpose of this story we're going to start there with their with those founding mothers now
• 05:30 - 06:00 we're going to be covering over seven decades of history here so we're just going to hit on a few highlights i can't tell the whole story and do it justice but particularly looking at the words of the people who are involved in this movement now you can tell looking around here that the national women's party was kind of telling their story um and when we came in at least every single picture uh was a picture of
• 06:00 - 06:30 a white woman every statue was was white women upper class white women uh which certainly gave the wrong impression um about what the true fight for women's suffrage was like and we wanna we wanna do a little better job of telling that story now for a long time that's sort of the story that people knew that they saw in their in their history books and probably because you know the people who wrote
• 06:30 - 07:00 the original history were some of those white women that we mentioned elizabeth katie stanton susan b anthony and some other matilda gage idaho harper they're telling the story of themselves so we're grateful to them for doing that because you know if women didn't write down their history it could be that we would have lost this entirely but it also meant that you know when you tell your own story you tell the good parts right and you
• 07:00 - 07:30 leave out the people maybe that that um that you didn't like as much or you didn't um agree with um and so for a long time that was really the the history that that people had it was so good though that we hit the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th amendment in 2020 because it really gave birth to a lot more scholarship a lot that was there already um but maybe people weren't looking at and then some some new um
• 07:30 - 08:00 research that's come out so as we look at these exhibits we want to make sure that we're telling a deeper story for instance when we're looking at that women's rights convention as marking that maybe as as one of the first moments in the fight for women's suffrage and the document that that women's rights convention came up with the declaration of sentiments we look at at that document it's one of our primary documents and the list
• 08:00 - 08:30 that um these uh radical thinkers brought together about all the ways that women were not treated equally in 1848 and as you can see it was a long list when they talked about that all men and women are created equal they said um basically that their claim was that the history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the
• 08:30 - 09:00 part of mentored women having indirect objects the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her so they're writing the list of all the ways that mankind has established a tyranny over women now one of those was that women were not able to vote and that would eventually become sort of the focus of the movement but as you can see that's not all on the list well here's one of the things that's on that list and this is a picture of elizabeth katie
• 09:00 - 09:30 stanton over on the left they said he has withheld from her rights which are given to the most ignorant and degraded of men both natives and foreigners so right from the outset you can see that there is um a feeling among these women fighting for rights that they they are sort of acknowledging a a social hierarchy political economic hierarchy and not necessarily challenging it all
• 09:30 - 10:00 together just saying that they particularly the white women are in the wrong place now as far as we know the only african-american who attended that first women's rights convention was frederick douglass and he was throughout his life a supporter of women's rights in fact it was him standing up during that convention and affirming elizabeth katie stanton's assertion that one of the things they should be fighting for was women's
• 10:00 - 10:30 rights to vote giving the weight of his authority towards that he said you know basically if you want the rest of the uh items on the list you need the vote to make them happen um but he would not be that convention really um spurred lots and lots of other women's rights conventions that uh had a higher reach a longer reach and it started a movement around the country
• 10:30 - 11:00 and one of the people who would attend those women's rights convention was this woman sojourner truth who um had been enslaved in new york basically you know tuned for and got her own freedom and changed her name to sojourner truth to say that she believed that it was her mission to travel around the country to sojourn and to tell people the truth and one of the places she told people the
• 11:00 - 11:30 truth was at women's rights conventions maybe her most famous speech was at the women's rights convention in akron ohio in 1851 where she stood up and said to the white women and the men there basically that they were missing a part of the story there are um the story you're telling about women's equality you need to talk to black women if you're going to to make those assertions she said i am a woman's
• 11:30 - 12:00 rights i have as much muscle as any man and i can do as much work as any man i have plowed and reaped and hust and chopped and mowed and can any man do more than that i have heard much about the sex as being equal i can carry as much as any man and can eat as much too if i can get it i am as strong as any man is now so this idea that you know black women don't get treated as if they need extra protection or privileges they're expected to endure the same indignities
• 12:00 - 12:30 and impression as black men they do the same work as as black men and so black women are embodying this idea of equality that you're talking about but you're not listening to us um and that will kind of be a theme throughout uh the fight for women's right to vote that speech is often known as the ain't i a woman speech the version i am uh quoting from was written up in the anti-slavery bugle uh by marius robinson who was
• 12:30 - 13:00 there shortly after the the convention happened so probably a more accurate um version than a later version that was published this version doesn't have the words ain't i a woman in it at all um now i i wanted to point out that i mentioned that those exhibits that we're looking at in the at the belmont paul were created by the national women's party telling the national woman's party story basically from the things that they have and leaving out a lot of the
• 13:00 - 13:30 story um one of the things we discovered as the national park service came in was that the national women's party had this very stunning sculpture of sojourner truth in their collection but it wasn't on display up until we closed at the start of the pandemic we did have this on display um that step bust of susan b anthony had gone been lent to the library of congress and so we put sojourner truth on display there but as a lot of things in the hallway it
• 13:30 - 14:00 doesn't have a lot of context to it on the right you see the the museum exhibit uh label that's on the pedestal um and you can see that it's just sort of a piece of paper stuck over the other one so and it was kind of peeling off so people who came to the museum would see well this is something that's been sort of stuck on later that's not the story we want to be telling about this uh the story of black women in the fight for women's right to vote is not a story
• 14:00 - 14:30 that is sort of should be sort of stuck in places it's an important part of the entire story one of the people who's not in our museum and didn't make it into the history of woman's suffrage written by stanton and anthony and others but who was a very influential part of that early movement was francis harper who was a journalist and a poet and a writer and she's going to these
• 14:30 - 15:00 women's rights conventions too um and doing the same thing as sojourner truth in the earlier days um calling out the part of this this argument that's being missed that the the wisdom that black women bring to this story and she stood up during a women's rights convention in may 1866 in new york city and talked about
• 15:00 - 15:30 um why we needed to look at equality as a as a whole cloth and not and not sort of and not leave people out of the story she said born of a race whose inheritance have been outrage and wrong most of my life has been spent in battling against these wrongs but i did not feel as keenly as others that i had these rights in common with other women which are now demanded and she said to kind of calling out to
• 15:30 - 16:00 those those white women we are all bound up together in one great bundle of humanity so we're connected to each other and we need to listen to each other and she said again you're speaking about rights but i'm speaking about wrongs there's a greater injustice uh i'm paraphrasing her that that that black women are facing that you need to be paying attention to now you notice that's may 1866 that's after the women's rights movement has been going
• 16:00 - 16:30 on for over over a decade and it's right after the civil war so a lot of the people who are involved in the fight for women's rights you know started activism as abolitionists and women sort of put aside the call for rights during the civil war as they are for their own rights as they're supporting the war effort and kind of believing that um they will show themselves to be patriotic citizens and then will be
• 16:30 - 17:00 rewarded with the vote after the the war is won and slavery is abolished and it didn't work out that way um one of the most important things that happens right after the civil war is in addition to ending slavery is the 14th amendment to the constitution and this is the first time that the whole idea of who is a citizen is defined in the u.s constitution and it says you know everybody born or
• 17:00 - 17:30 naturalized is an equal citizen and has this is the well-known part of it that you have um due process of law and equal protection of the laws whoever you are great however the 14th amendment also introduces for the first time into the constitution the word mail it's in the section two uh it has to do with the right to vote it's kind of a convoluted um section but the idea that the that
• 17:30 - 18:00 voting be uh is tied to maleness now in the u.s constitution becomes a horror to those who've been fighting for women's rights and so the question becomes do we as women's rights activists support the 14th amendment of the constitution now elizabeth katie stanton's answer is absolutely not she says if we put that word male into the it'll take us a hundred years to get it
• 18:00 - 18:30 out maybe it still hasn't is still there and still hasn't gotten out but people like sojourner truth too are are worried about this too feeling like um you know if colored men get their rights she says and not colored women uh you'll see colored men be masters over the women and it will be just as bad as it was before now she's not against black men getting rights including the
• 18:30 - 19:00 right to vote but she is worried about what that's going to mean for women and so then you can see this black woman sort of stuck between these two forces the white women on one side the black men on the other and where do they fit as we talk about rights are we really all bound up together so the question in the women's rights movement about whether to support the 14th amendment starts to get ugly the
• 19:00 - 19:30 14th amendment is passed and ratified in 1868 and then uh it seems fairly quickly after that that more is going to need to be done if black men are going to be able to vote and this really brings out the worst in people like elizabeth katie stanton and susan b anthony who um feel betrayed that they um are being pushed to the
• 19:30 - 20:00 side and feeling like their rightful place in this social hierarchy is not being um appreciated so you have these kind of words coming out of people elizabeth katie stanton this is something that she published in her newspaper the revolution which by the way she got funding for from a guy named george train who was an avid racist and white supremacist um and you can hear the ugliness that has come into this movement where once these
• 20:00 - 20:30 these ideas have been joined and it's not just about um black men it's all about basically assorting white women's superiority because she says think of patrick and and hollins and young tongue who do not know the difference between a monarchy and republic who never read the declaration of independence or webster's spelling book making laws for and then she lists three really accomplished notable women lydia
• 20:30 - 21:00 marie childs lucretia mott fandy kimball those are names people would have known at the time so you can hear here she's not not just black men but uh irish and german and chinese so immigrants men who are not considered in her mind maybe equal citizens with the educated white women which she considers herself so you hear the ugliness that has come into this movement and it really
• 21:00 - 21:30 explodes at a meeting in 1869 by this point the anti-slavery societies have you know slavery has been abolished so they're sort of this new organization which is the american equal rights association which is very short-lived because of these things and one at their what becomes their last meeting in 1869 frederick douglass stood up and called out that kind of talk from people like elizabeth katie stanton and explain why
• 21:30 - 22:00 he was saying if we have to make a choice if the the the social situation is such that we have to choose between black men and women we need to choose black men first he said when women because they are women are hunted down through the cities of new york and new orleans when they are dragged from their houses and hung upon lampposts when their children are torn from their arms and their brains dashed out upon the pavement when they are objects of insult and outrage at every
• 22:00 - 22:30 turn when they are in danger of having their homes burnt down over their heads when their children are not allowed to enter schools then they will have an urgency to obtain the ballot equal to our own so really strong uh visceral words and you know this strain in what had been a very close friendship that frederick douglass had with elizabeth katie stanton and susan b anthony this will lead sort of to this idea that
• 22:30 - 23:00 maybe black men don't support women's suffrage and that's not a fair comparison of course black men are not a monolith like like any population but people leaders like frederick douglass and later uh booker t washington w.e.b du bois will again and again speak out in support of women's rights including right to vote frederick douglas said stayed a woman's rights man his whole life um so it's a false um
• 23:00 - 23:30 a false split there but it does end up being a split and people like francis harper are caught in the middle see you know that black women are being called like from both sides you know throw your support behind your race and the black men will support you throw your uh support behind your sex and the white women will seat that you're taking care of um and
• 23:30 - 24:00 francis harper does say well the white women they all go for sex that the thing we should care about is that we are women before we are black and this as i said leads to a sp um there are then two suffrage organizations formed um the national woman suffrage association led by stanton and anthony and they are fighting for lots of things on that list
• 24:00 - 24:30 of the declaration of sentiments all the ways women are treated unequally and they begin to believe that if black men are going to get the um vote through constitutional amendment then that's the way women need it as well the other group called the american woman suffrage association lucy stone julia ward howe josephine ruffin become part of that um they believe in supporting suffrage for black men first and then with an amendment to the constitution and then they're going to fight for women's right
• 24:30 - 25:00 to vote on the state level and so this is a split that leads to not a lot happening for a long time um and black women join both groups so it's not as if all the black women are with american women's suffrage association um but um but but there is a strain and struggle in the movement um the 15th amendment as i mentioned comes around then in 1870
• 25:00 - 25:30 again do white women support this white women suffragists i have not found anywhere that susan b anthony said this herself although in modern tales that's often attributed to her but that someone said it about her that she would sooner cut off her right arm before she would ever work for or demand the ballot for the black man and not the woman so you can hear just again that sort of visceral emotional
• 25:30 - 26:00 tension that's going on in the movement the 15th amendment of course does become ratified in 1870 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 race color or previous condition of servitude you see this illustration on the right from harper's bazaar that is often associated with the 15th amendment of black men from different walks of life from the farm to the merchant to the the civil war veteran all coming to cast
• 26:00 - 26:30 their ballot that's sort of the image that that people often attribute to the 15th amendment but i like this illustration too it's called balloting in the south and you can see uh here is a man sort of explaining what's going to be on the ballot with a bunch of other black men maybe in a farming community gathering together to listen in and lean in but look you can see that the women are there too they might be pushed off to the periphery to the sides
• 26:30 - 27:00 but they're listening they're leaning in they're paying attention and this becomes a real sense of of a black woman seeing the vote as something that the community does together they get educated together the and then the men go out sort of and vote for the community doesn't mean that black women don't also think that they should have the right to vote but given the current circumstances this is one of the ways that women get their voices heard during this period of
• 27:00 - 27:30 time um the split in the suffrage movement mends by 1890 this is actually a picture from a couple of years older earlier but you can get a sense that you can see that the women who started the movement elizabeth katie stanton and susan b anthony are getting elderly also lucy stone who's down in this picture getting elderly and their the next generation their daughters and nieces and the next one really want to see that split healed and convince the two groups
• 27:30 - 28:00 to come back together and form the rather awkwardly named national american woman suffrage association or nasa for short in that coming back together what happens is the idea of the constitutional amendment sort of gets pushed to the side and the focus becomes on winning women the votes in the states which that same year wyoming become which had
• 28:00 - 28:30 been a territory where women could vote becomes a state where women can vote and in the next couple years there's a couple more colorado utah and idaho um that's it though for a while um so this fighting for women's vote on the state level maybe for the suffrage on the same terms as men maybe just in local elections or in school board elections it's a lot of work and they have a lot more defeats than they do
• 28:30 - 29:00 successes one of the reasons they decide to focus on suffrage in the states though is because by this point the reconstruction era where black men have been elected to offices and are voting it has crumbled and that that their voting is often particularly in the south being suppressed through violence and other oppression and focusing on states
• 29:00 - 29:30 rights and state voting is a way to kind of pander to white supremacists particularly in the south and so um as they as the leadership of the suffrage movement does at the white leadership they sort of push black women to the side now black women have always organized they've always had their own clubs in addition to joining the white lead clubs um in 1896
• 29:30 - 30:00 um there's an organization that comes together to sort of organize those efforts that are a local church church-related organizations known as the national association of colored women and they have a slogan lifting as we climb so this idea that um those who make progress or maybe have more um
• 30:00 - 30:30 more prosperity more economic uh opportunities then help use that to help their community and and support those in their local communities the first president of the national association of colored women is a prominent suffragist mary church terrell who we'll see pictures of in a minute who is internationally known as a suffragist um she speaks several languages and and and travels around the world fighting for women's right to vote
• 30:30 - 31:00 and again is another one of those voices who's calling out to the the white women staying involved in those organizations but calling them out that they need to care about black women's rights as well and the national association of colored women works for many many different things for their community but one of them is supporting the idea of women's right to vote so the this idea of expanding the suffrage
• 31:00 - 31:30 movement into the south among the white power structure is gaining momentum in the early 20th century the late 19th early 20th century there is an anasa convention which had had been held either in in the northeast or in washington dc there's one in atlanta uh and 1896 and then one in new orleans in 1903 and while nasa says
• 31:30 - 32:00 they don't take any position on whether these local chapters ought to be segregated or integrated they let the states decide for themselves for both of those the leadership asks black women and in the case of or the 1895 one in atlanta frederick douglass um to stay away so this is kate gordon who is the leader of the new orleans women's suffrage
• 32:00 - 32:30 association she is very adamant that the that the vote should only be for white women and that black women shouldn't be included and so you see names of leaders including susan b anthony who are attending this convention even though they know that black women have been excluded later on kate gordon will actually end up opposing the 19th amendment even though she is an avid supporter of women's suffrage because she doesn't think that there should be
• 32:30 - 33:00 something in the constitution and she really wants to see louisiana only in franchise white women so the black women in in new orleans as a very uh vibrant and organized black woman suffrage organization in new orleans they have their own convention and their own meeting and susan b anthony comes the next day to address them so that that's her way of um of kind of appeasement i guess um and um
• 33:00 - 33:30 that they have a that their club is called the phyllis wheatley club and sylvainy williams who's the one you see pictured here in the middle uh you know stands up and calls susan b anthony to task this as gently and genteely as she can gives a speech to introduce her that says basically you know black women have been the flowers the beautiful plowers uh flowers trampled underfoot
• 33:30 - 34:00 by the white woman suffragist but she says yet she is advancing and sometimes you find her farther on than you might have expected so susan b anthony died a couple of years later in in 1906 and a new generation of women is taking over leadership of the suffrage movement including nasa anna howard shaw becomes the president and she is
• 34:00 - 34:30 basically called upon to address the charge the accusation that nasa is an integrationist organization so she doesn't have to answer to their racism she has to answer to the idea that nasa is is fighting for integration for an end of white supremacy and she and she's not the only one who does this or argues basically that women winning the vote would help maintain white supremacy that once there are more
• 34:30 - 35:00 white women voting that will help strengthen white power basically in south um now uh and and the reason that she's sort of giving about this is she talks again about um when the civil war happened and women you know put aside their efforts uh to demand the vote in the belief that when the war was over the country would recognize their patriotic service and reward them with the ballot the crowning
• 35:00 - 35:30 symbol of citizenship but instead of recognizing their service and rewarding the loyal women the cried went forth this is the negro's hour let the women wait and they are still waiting as they wait they are not blind to the fact that this nation did what no other nation has ever done when it voluntarily made its former slaves the sovereign rulers of its loyal and patriotic women the white is silent in that phrase so you can see that this argument that
• 35:30 - 36:00 started with the um with the declaration of sentiments or was there at the beginning that there's a correct hierarchy to society white women are just in the wrong place is continuing with the next generation uh and mary church terrell again was always speaking up against this and she said basically this is this is a fool's game she said you will never get suffrage until the sense of justice has been so developed in men that they will give
• 36:00 - 36:30 fair play to the colored race so hearkening back to francis harper's call that we're all bound up together and you can't section off black women expect that you'll get something that looks like equality um just another way that racism shows shows up in the suffrage movement and and all over um the new york women's suffrage organization association has a convention and they invite harriet tubman
• 36:30 - 37:00 you know the the the uh well-known uh abolitionist and leader of the underground railroad by this point she is elderly this is in the early uh 1900s um i mean they're touting that harriet tubman is coming isn't this great um she travels there by train she's there on the train with other suffragists who are so happy to see her traveling from auburn to rochester when she gets there
• 37:00 - 37:30 she has to sleep in the train station because there are no places in rochester where a black woman could rent a room and so the next day the white women realize this and find a place for her to stay but he or she is their honored guest and they haven't even recognized how racism is going to affect her in rochester so the story we tell at uh belmont paul is really of kind of that third
• 37:30 - 38:00 generation the new uh women who come along particularly alice paul who you see here on the left um she had gotten involved in the fight for women's right to vote in um in britain she's been one of the militant suffragettes who's gone to jail and gone on hunger strikes she's kind of a celebrity when she comes back to the u.s and she approaches the leadership of nasa who you see over
• 38:00 - 38:30 here on the right you see anna howard shaw here in the middle left and then next to her is carrie chapman cat they're both we're very close with susan b anthony they're now leading the organization um and alice paul is feeling like um this movement has been going on for many decades and the things you ladies have been doing are just not getting the job done i need to see some we need to see some of that energy in britain here in the united states so she comes in and
• 38:30 - 39:00 she convinces the nasa leadership um to to stir things up a little bit with a woman's suffrage procession down pennsylvania avenue on the day before woodrow wilson's presidential inauguration on march 3rd 1913 and she's going to get thousands of women from around the country to come and march and they will be led by this woman you see here this is inez mel holland
• 39:00 - 39:30 maybe unless you're a suffrage aficionado we don't know the name he knows mulholland too much now but everybody knew who she was at the time she was first of all she was a very accomplished person she was a lawyer and she used her her legal skills in the fight for um civil rights her dad was one of the founders of the naacp she was a dynamic speaker but that's not why she's well-known she's well-known because she's really pretty um she's
• 39:30 - 40:00 known as the most beautiful suffragist so she's kind of becomes the poster child in the story that alice paul is telling of the new woman of the 20th century saying this is not your grandmother's suffrage movement we are the new young this is what a feminist looks like she's saying all in white on a white horse the herald of the future uh wearing the crown that will eventually inspire wonder woman's tiara so the story ellis paul's got in her
• 40:00 - 40:30 mind that she's going to tell her right in the streets of the nation's capital so that the next day the president has to walk in her footsteps it's really a white woman's story this is the uh planning committee for that suffrage procession alice paul there in the middle now alice paul born in new jersey she's a quaker she's marched in in new york and and black women have participated and and uh immigrant women chinese women have participated in those marches she sort
• 40:30 - 41:00 of assumes that's going to happen here in washington dc but along comes local washingtonians are the um wife of a congressman elizabeth kent here and helen gardner and they tell her uh alice we don't do that here in washington dc this is a southern town you have an integrated march the white women won't have it and you're going to upset the southern uh segregationists so alice paul goes
• 41:00 - 41:30 along with what she's told and she tries to keep black women from marching um and you hear from the uh naacp's reporting what happens she says the woman suffrage party had a hard time settling up the status of negroes in the washington parade at first negro callers were received coolly at headquarters then they were told to register but found that the registry clerks were usually out finally an order
• 41:30 - 42:00 went out to segregate them in the parade but telegrams and protests poured in and eventually the colored women marched according to their state and occupation without let or hindrance so although sometimes you'll hear in the history that black women were forced to march in the back it's clear alice paul wanted them to but based on this and some other reporting i don't think they did but you can see the cartoon over on the right from the new york tribune um that that's certainly um the impression they
• 42:00 - 42:30 leave with the nation you see this cartoon that says just like the men and the white woman suffrages is holding her hand out to say uh to the black woman suffrage no not you and it says votes for white women only some of the stories we know uh are that uh we have lists by carrie clifford who was there one of the black women organizers of black women marching in with their professions or with their state delegations and one of the stories
• 42:30 - 43:00 they tell us these women delta sigma theta was a brand new sorority that had just been formed at howard university with the purpose of being socially active and so one of the first things they want to do is they want to march in the suffrage procession and uh the the procession committee tries to keep them out um but we know that they marched with the other college women you see a picture on the right of the of the group of women from different
• 43:00 - 43:30 colleges we don't see the deltas in that picture but they marched with their mentor mary church cheryl and the story she told is that who was the one who made sure that they marched where they belonged was a nismo holland so if alice ball is holding inez up as a this is the new woman of the 20th century maybe she should be paying attention to how inez um embodied you know and stood for that idea of being bound together and that equality for all
• 43:30 - 44:00 um this is uh you can see the um display in our museum all these great stories none of them there so hopefully when we make new exhibits we'll be able to tell more of these stories including my favorite story which is about the illinois suffragist so this is a picture from the newspaper of some of the illinois suffragists they're led there by grace trout in the middle and on the right you see miss virginia brooks she's
• 44:00 - 44:30 going to show up again when the illinois suffragists gather on pennsylvania avenue getting ready to mark they apparently have gotten word that uh it was supposed to be a whites only march so they turn to so grace trout i should say turns to um the only black women of their delegation my favorite suffragist uh ida b wells barnett and tell her that sorry ida you can't march with us you'll
• 44:30 - 45:00 have to we heard that the black women were supposed to go to the back and iw wells gets very angry and says if the illinois women do not take a stand now in this great democratic parade then the colored women are lost and i really believe that she was saying you know where we know how to organize even better than you do and you need us in this fight and she says i was asked to march with the other women of our state and i intend to do so or not take part in the parade at all
• 45:00 - 45:30 so she marches off she storms off and virginia brooks says well i'm not going to let her go off by herself if she's leaving i'm leaving too one of the other women says virginia what will people say she says let them say anything that they please i cannot prevent that but i can prevent having one of our delegation left to march alone almost as if she were in disgrace so virginia brooks and another ally bell
• 45:30 - 46:00 squire leave with iwls they don't go to the back though they wait along the procession route and when the illinois suffrages appear they step right out in front so this is a newspaper has was able to capture this moment of ida b wells barnett leading the illinois suffrage uh delegation along with virginia brooks and bell squire her allies next to her there
• 46:00 - 46:30 this is the only picture we have of that moment though and you can tell it's it's a picture of a newspaper so it's not a great photo but we have to get that into our exhibits somehow um this is the only picture we have right now of ida b wells in our um in our displays you can see it it's a another temporary uh pop-up that's put there the text was written by by a college intern he was wonderful and found all kinds of great things but you know it's a
• 46:30 - 47:00 text heavy not telling a very good story so that's something that we need to do a better job of telling in the future um mary church cheryl sort of we find this moment where she's been interacting with walter white the head of the naacp uh and he's sort of repeating back to her in this letter what what mary had said to him he said just as you say all of them are mortally afraid of the cells and if they could get the suffrage amendment through without enfranchising colored women they would do it in a moment
• 47:00 - 47:30 and despite that mary churchill participates in the national women's party's best known um campaign which is picketing the white house that she says that the national women's party would call her up again and again she and her daughter phyllis when they needed to some people out on the front lines picketing the white house and they would go we don't have a picture of them picketing but this idea of
• 47:30 - 48:00 being kind of transgressive in the fight for rights was something that was was dangerous particularly for black women so the the courage that mary church terrell and her daughter showed to show up on those picket lines again and again um is important to note they didn't go to jail once the the women started getting arrested that was not some a risk that they were able to take um you know and not something that would have gotten the the publicity and
• 48:00 - 48:30 sympathy that white women going to jail got in fact some of these suffragists when they went to jail um the prison officials to shame them put them with black women prisoners because even the prison was segregated and that that was meant to to to humiliate them they did talk about how uh interacting with the black woman prisoners kind of opened their eyes to some of the injustices that that black women faced
• 48:30 - 49:00 with the kind of things they were getting arrested for and what the justice system looked like for them and uh one of them doris stevens talked about that that as they're having these conversations and feeling this sympathy for what the black women are facing that they think about getting involved in um what we would call criminal justice reform today and then they don't do it they decide that what they need to do is fight for women to have the vote and then you know
• 49:00 - 49:30 basically then the white women will fix it when they get the vote so they never take up that cause um these i don't have very good pictures of it but i just did want to show that mary church cheryl's picture was added to um our hall of portraits after the national park service came in um so um again like the sojourner truth not not great context but uh trying to get more of those stories in just a quick story i wanted to tell from
• 49:30 - 50:00 texas i'm sure you have lots of uh stories um in your exhibits from texas but uh tell the story of maude simpson now this is a picture from 1954 so this is later but maude simpson was not only the head of the el paso naacp but she also formed the el paso negro women's civic and enfranchisement league so a black woman suffrage organization in texas and what she tries to do is get her
• 50:00 - 50:30 group affiliated with nasa now this is a story about nasa which was always the larger much better funded a much more influential woman suffrage group but i'm sure something similar would have happened if they tried to become a part of the national women's party and alice paul and that is basically that carrie chapman cat said no um she said uh i presume and this again
• 50:30 - 51:00 even someone from the north who's saying you know um you know we don't necessarily uh agree with all the things that happen with the summer the southern segregationist but she says i presume that no colored women's leagues are members in southern states although i don't know positively that this is true so basically black women's leagues can't come in to be affiliated with nasa
• 51:00 - 51:30 and then she says i think in some northern states individual colored women are direct members so in the north black women can join although that black women's groups can't be part of nasa and then she says of course these women in the north are women with a good deal of white blood and are educated women otherwise they would not be asking auxiliary ship so you can just hear the kind of racism that these black women have to face from those who say they're fighting for
• 51:30 - 52:00 equality grace trout from illinois is in this picture too by the way she's still part of the leadership this is actually a picture from 1920 of the league of women voters which is what nasa became but it's the same leadership that's the leadership of of um nasa later on alice paul was asked you know as she was an elderly woman about these kind of conflicts and and why she was making the decisions that she was making throughout the suffrage
• 52:00 - 52:30 movement this is her answering in 1974 when she's elderly she said i feel very strongly that if you're going to do anything you have to take one thing and do it you can't try lots and lots of reforms and get them all mixed up together so she saw and she would say this over and over again that she saw black women's issues as race issues not sex issues and she would say that that's not my issue and then she says i never doubted that equal rights was the right direction most reforms most problems are complicated but to me there's nothing
• 52:30 - 53:00 complicated about ordinary equality and this gets quoted a lot and i really just don't know what to do with that at all i mean because everything we've shown here and everything that alice paul was involved in shows that that when you start talking about equality yes it becomes complicated whose equality are you talking about what kind of equality are you talking about um for instance now this is the last thing i'll show you from our exhibits
• 53:00 - 53:30 and this was made for us from our friends over at the frederick douglass national historic site so we put it up again as sort of a temporary exhibit of all the complications just when you're talking about voting and how equality gets complicated when you talk about voting all the ways that people have been prevented from voting women and men both in the past and up to today when uh the national women's party when the
• 53:30 - 54:00 league of women voters were asked to take up these issues as part of their continuing fight for women's equality alice paul would say again and again that's a race issue not a not a sex issue that's not our issue so as we create the new exhibits we hope that we will be guided by um the words of my favorite self are just i to b wells barnett the way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth
• 54:00 - 54:30 upon them so i hope that we can continue to to expose more of the truth of the ongoing struggle for women's equality that was fantastic thank you so much susan um i i know i learned a lot today and i i enjoyed this program and i'm glad that you highlighted that um you know the unique position that black women found themselves in and still do so they were
• 54:30 - 55:00 you know found themselves pulled in two directions black men wanted them to support the race issue and white women wanted them to support elevating women's inferior status by um you know fighting for the vote and it took black women and black reformers like mary church terrell to say you know we can't fight for one or the other we live at the intersection of racism and sexism and we have to to fight for both um and
• 55:00 - 55:30 i think it's important to point out the reason why we don't see as many photos of black women um protesting like the famous picture of the silent sentinels in front of the white house is because they were purposely left out of those photos they white women suffer just wanted to project this image of that um white middle-class woman um going to the polls to vote they didn't they were afraid that if they showed working-class women or black
• 55:30 - 56:00 women any woman of color that it was going to um hinder their you know their chances for uh getting the 19th amendment so um all of this recovery work that's being done right now and has been going on for decades by women historians is revealing and covering all of these stories and giving us a more a more holistic view of the women's suffrage movement um but can you tell us a little bit about changing the exhibits at the belmont paw
• 56:00 - 56:30 house um what you know when when did you decide that or when did they decide that this needed to to happen what was the inspiration so um i should say everything with the national park service moves slowly um and you know there's getting the funding and all of that but part of it is that the house is undergoing renovation so um there's a lot of things are being fixed including plaster that um are affecting the um the interior walls and then also
• 56:30 - 57:00 the national women's party ceased operations and transferred their collections to the national park service so while before we were interpreting what the national women's party had created now we're going to have to we're going to have to put things back differently so we want to um take that opportunity to tell deeper and and more complex stories that's part of the mission of the national park service whereas the national women's party was
• 57:00 - 57:30 creating a museum about themselves we want to be the women's equality national monument and while the national women's party will always be the the focus the center um it's not the soul story and we really want to want to tell you know because the national park service wants to be the place where um that the civic space where we wrestle with the the the past and how that uh is affecting things today that that's part
• 57:30 - 58:00 of our mission fantastic so when will when will everything be finished and ready to be viewed by the public so that is a great question the construction that was supposed to be done by uh spring of 2023 is of course always already hitting delays um and we don't have uh the final funding for redoing the exhibits yet we're still even just in the process of accessioning and storing the collections
• 58:00 - 58:30 so i would say we might end up opening the museum before we've truly been able to redo the exhibits i would guess it probably won't be until late 2023 maybe into 2024. but in the meantime we're going to keep telling stories like this and as you mentioned follow us on look at our website follow us on social media we're going to keep getting even when we don't have a physical space we're going to keep being in the virtual space and telling these stories fantastic um i'm going to go ahead and open it up to the audience does anyone
• 58:30 - 59:00 have any questions if so feel free to unmute or type them in the chat box and if you have questions that come to mind after the program feel free to shoot me an email and i will pass them on to um susan yep and i'm going to put our our website into the um into the um chat as well and my email address
• 59:00 - 59:30 so that you can contact me directly too and uh you know and if you have a group that you'd like like to have a program with let me know happy to do that as well and i just want to thank you again for um for joining us everyone that's here and for susan for giving this closing program for our citizens at last exhibit and i do think it's important to point out that we um that even after the 19th amendment uh black women black men were still
• 59:30 - 60:00 fighting for uh for voting rights up until the civil rights act of 1965 and black women persisted and continued to fight for equality um and i wanted to point out that we are coming up as you probably know on the 100 year anniversary of um the proposal of the equal rights amendment and uh the history behind that is fraught and interesting and there's a lot that has happened over the past few years so if you are interested in that
• 60:00 - 60:30 definitely check out our women's suffrage library guide and i will follow up with an email and a link to that and for this recording but again thank you all so much for joining us i appreciate you being here susan as always thank you so much for this wonderful program enjoy your week okay