“Women’s Suffrage for Whom?: How the 19th Amendment Failed to Secure the Right to Vote for Black Women and the Continued Efforts of Black Suffragists During the Roaring Twenties.”

“Women’s Suffrage for Whom?: How the 19th Amendment Failed to Secure the Right to Vote for Black Women and the Continued Efforts of Black Suffragists During the Roaring Twenties.”

Presenter(s)

Megan Grace Brock

Description

With 2020 marking the 100 year centennial anniversary of Women's Suffrage in the United States, we are forced to ask ourselves, "What is it that we are truly celebrating?" The ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920 has been revered for the past century as the year of American Women's Suffrage, but the harsh realities of racism and historic disenfranchisement meant that the freedoms guaranteed by the 19th Amendment were not equally extended to all women. Black Women’s struggle for the vote did not end with the passage of the 19th amendment, rather, the 1920s was a decade of both continued struggle and immense organization for Black Suffragists who were still fighting for the equal right to vote across the United States. Black Women's contributions in nearly all dominant historical movements and narratives have been historically overshadowed, misrepresented, minimized, and even omitted entirely. In an attempt to somewhat rectify this injustice, and rather than centering the focus on the factors that continued to restrict the equal access of Black Women to the ballot, this research will focus on the voices, demands, writings, and perspectives of Black Suffragists who lived, worked and dedicated themselves to the continued fight for Black Women's Suffrage during the 1920s. Focusing specifically on what Black Suffragists had to say, how they felt, their demands for change and progress, and the various ways Black Women organized for a cause that was for the first time inherently on behalf of the voting rights of Black Women is imperative to producing more holistic and accurate histories.

Publication Date

4-22-2021

Project Designation

Capstone Project

Primary Advisor

Ashleigh S. Lawrence-Sanders

Primary Advisor's Department

History

Keywords

Stander Symposium project, College of Arts and Sciences

United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

Gender Equality; Reduced Inequalities

“Women’s Suffrage for Whom?: How the 19th Amendment Failed to Secure the Right to Vote for Black Women and the Continued Efforts of Black Suffragists During the Roaring Twenties.”

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