Remembering Black Suffragists

March is Women’s History

Several years ago, while teaching at a community college in Southern Nevada, I planned a lesson on the women’s suffrage movement in the United States. Most of the articles and videos that I found heralded the activism of white suffragists, such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Lecretia Mott, names that I knew well. Years later, however, I learned of the activism of Black suffragists in the United States.

During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Black women and white were trapped in domestic roles, denied access to male-dominated professions, unlikely to publicly speak on political and social issues, and burdened under patriarchal dictates and societal expectations. Black women, however, battled sexism and racism, yet their involvement in the suffrage movement and the adverse consequences they faced, are often missing from historical records.

Prominent Black suffragists included Maria W. Stewart, Sojourner Truth, Frances W. Harper, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, and Mary Church Terrell. Their achievements extended beyond fighting for suffrage. They excelled in diverse fields from education to journalism, founded national women’s organizations, pushed for anti-lynching laws, wrote columns and books in support of abolition, and lectured nationally and internationally.

Maria W. Stewart

Six years before the historic1848 Seneca Falls convention of white suffragists and their supporters, Maria W. Stewert, essayist, lecturer, and activist, addressed a mixed audience at the African American Female Intelligence Society (AAFIS), advocating the education of, and right to vote, for African American women.

In a paper for Voices of Democracy, the U.S. Oratory Project, Cheryl R. Jorgensen-Earp, Ph.D. (University of Lynchburg), stated, “(Stewart’s) …address will reveal a woman not only groundbreaking in her persona as a speaker and the nature of the audiences she addressed but also the rich and varied arguments she constructed to oppose constraints she faced as a woman and a free black (sic) American.”
The daughter of free African-born parents, Stewart was orphaned at age five and “bound out” as an indentured servant to a clergyman’s family until age 15.

Eventually, she moved to Boston, married businessman James Stewart, and settled in Beacon Hill, a thriving community of middle-class African Americans. In 1829, James died leaving behind a substantial inheritance, but white executors denied her access to the money, so, she was forced into domestic work again.

In the ensuing years, Stewart gained prominence for her essays on abolition and women’s voting rights. Her decision to address AAFIS had been a courageous one, especially during the 1800s when neither white nor Black women spoke publicly on political affairs. However, following three other speeches, Stewart endured harsh public scrutiny. Jorgensen-Earp explained, “Stewart’s unique and visible presence was almost guaranteed to make her a target. Although she initially found an audience, before long, she was castigated for her public role and ‘doors in Boston soon closed to her.’”

Sojourner Truth

At the 1851 Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio, Sojourner Truth (neé Isabella Baumfree) delivered her famous address, “Ain’t I a Woman?” She argued that women were neither too weak nor too fragile to have full rights, citing her resilience despite the brutal treatment she endured as an enslaved woman. Truth challenged audiences to consider who should count as a “woman” in the suffrage movement and insisted that the fight for women’s rights include Black women, who faced both racial and gender oppression.

“If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.”

From the 1840s through the 1880s, Truth traveled extensively as a speaker, blending abolitionism with women’s rights. Her lectures drew large crowds and garnered public support for suffrage.

Frances W. Harper

In her speeches, Frances W. Harper, abolitionist and suffragist, described the interconnected struggles of race and gender. In 1866, she gave her famous speech at the National Woman’s Rights Convention in New York. The National Women’s History Museum noted, “She emphasized that Black women were facing the double burden of racism and sexism at the same time, therefore the fight for women’s suffrage must include suffrage for African Americans.”

Harper also admonished white women for their failure of solidarity with Black women, “You white women speak here of rights … I speak of wrongs.”

After the convention, Frederick Douglass, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Lucy Stone founded the American Equal Rights Association (AERA) that promoted suffrage for both African Americans and women.

However, following enactment of the 15th Amendment in 1870 that prohibited denying the right to vote based on “race, color, or previous condition of servitude,” a rift developed among AERA members over support for the amendment. White suffragists were incensed that African American men had the right to vote before them. This internal division led Harper, Douglass, and others to leave the organization and create the American Woman Suffrage Association.

Ida Wells-Barnett

At five feet, Ida Wells-Barnett’s stature belied her tenacity as a journalist, anti-lynching crusader, and feminist who tackled the contentious social and political issues of her day--from lynching to women’s suffrage.

In 1892, a white mob destroyed the office of the Memphis Free Speech, a newspaper Wells-Barnett had co-founded. Under threat of violence, she relocated to Chicago, married Ferdinand Lee Barnett, lawyer, and civil rights activist, bore four children, and continued her fight for racial justice and women’s rights.

Excluded from membership in white suffrage organizations, Black women formed “social clubs” in their home states to promote women’s rights and voting rights. In 1913, Wells-Barnett established the Alpha Suffrage Club in Chicago (a state that allowed women to vote in presidential and local municipal elections). Her mobilization of Black women led to the election of Oscar S. DePriest, the first Black alderman, to the Chicago City Council.

That same year, she and other Black suffragists participated in a national suffrage parade in Washington, D.C. Upon arrival, a movement leader instructed them to walk at the back end of the crowd. Wells-Barnett refused. “Either I go with you or not at all … I am not taking this stand because I personally wish for recognition. I am doing it for the future benefit of my whole race.” She claimed her place at the front of the march.

 Mary Church Terrell

Mary Church Terrell, was born to formerly enslaved parents who were among “… the South’s first African American millionaires.” She was an anti-lynching and civil rights activist, educator, and journalist who actively campaigned for women’s suffrage.

Through her friendships with white suffragists Cady Stanton and Anthony, Terrell was one of few Black women to address the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) at its1898 biennial session held in Washington, D.C. Her speech, titled, "The Progress of Colored Women," urged white suffragists to fight for the lives of Black women who struggled under the "double burden" of racism and sexism.

Fluent in French, German, and Italian, Terrell was the only Black woman at the 1904 International Congress of Women conference in Berlin, Germany; she received an enthusiastic ovation when she delivered her address in German.

Terrell was a founding member and first president of National Association of Colored Women (1896), one of the founders of the NAACP (1909), and co-founder of the National Association of College Women (1910).

In 1917, she joined with the National Woman’s Party to picket President Woodrow Wilson’s White House to call for women’s suffrage.

 In 1940, she published her autobiography, A Colored Woman in a White World, outlining her experiences with discrimination. “A white woman has only one handicap to overcome—that of sex. I have two both sex and race … Colored men have only one—that of race. Colored women are the only group in this country who have two handicaps to overcome …”

The Struggle is Still Relevant

According to American Association of University Women, “Today, women of color are still unfairly disadvantaged at the polls, as certain jurisdictions work to suppress voting under the guise of preventing “voter fraud.” In the past 10 years alone, 25 states have put in place new voting restrictions that largely affect marginalized communities.”

The hard‑won right to vote—secured through the courage and sacrifice of Wells-Barnett and countless others—remains under threat today, demanding a new generation of voter activism to honor their legacy.

Image: AI-generated