In 1876, feminist triple threat Susan B. Anthony, Elizabath Cady Stanton and Matilda Joselyn
Gage started writing The History of American Suffrage.
Ok, ok, I know this is supposed to be a history of feminism without white ladies, BUT listen: in
the final 5700-page tome, only one woman of color was namechecked: Sojourner Truth.
You're probably thinking “uh duh, feminism is for white ladies blah blah blah,” but
what a lot of us don’t understand is how likely NONE of this suffrage and women’s liberation
would’ve happened at all had it not been for women of color.
The first wave of feminism officially takes place between 1848’s Seneca Falls Convention
and the 1920 ratification of the 19th Amendment But long before the Declaration of Sentiments
was written, the abolition movement was already underway and was publicly mobilizing women
like never before. In 1830, abolitionist newspaper publisher,
political writer and educator Maria Stewart became the first woman to ever speak
publicly in front of a “promiscuous,” or mixed gender crowd. And her topics? The need for both racial
and gender equality. 19th-century intersectionality, y’all!
Oh, and the first dude to ever speak publicly on behalf of women’s rights? Frederick “Most
Regal Hair Ever” Douglass. Then in 1837
the Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women was the first time ladies collectively began agitating
for the end of slavery as well as the beginning of women's rights particularly for black women. And this
was no small feat, considering how Pennsylvania Hall where the convention was held was subsequently
burned to the ground. In other words, by the time the feminism’s
first wave official began, women of color had long been surfing the equality tide in
their communities, because there was simply no time to lose. The 1850 passage of the Fugitive
Slave Acts allowed both escaped and freed slaves to be arrested without questioning and
returned to slave-owners; that directly endangered the lives of people like Frances E.W. Harper who
not only was the first black woman to publish a short story in 1859 but used her prominent platform
to champion abolition as well as suffrage.
And though first-wave feminism is best-known for winning women the vote, the movement
didn’t stop there. They were also out to win property, economic and trade rights legally denied to married women.
And for women of color during the Civil War Era and Reconstruction eras, employment opportunities, educational access and protection
from racist acts of violence were at stake as well.
But when the 15th Amendment ratified in 1870, granting black men the vote, the
suffrage movement split into two factions in support of and opposition to black male enfranchisement,
straining that ideological bridge that women of color had built between racial- and gender-based
discrimination. Nevertheless, their activism and community organizing only grew in
word and deed. For instance, Josephine St. Pierre St. Ruffin aka 2 Saint
founded The Woman’s Era, which was the first newspaper written by and for African-American women
in 1888. In that divided social climate in 1892, scholar and teacher Anna Julia Cooper published A
Voice from the South which is considered a foundational
text of black feminism today.
The Black Women’s Club Movement was also
instrumental in women of color campaigning for rights and representation as well as fostering
uplift and education in their own communities. And it was through these clubs that badass journalist and
suffragist Ida B. Wells spread her impassioned anti-lyching speech, helping found more
clubs around the country along the way. Then, in 1896, wells, 2 Saint, along with
Frances E.W. Harper and Harriet Tubman – yes, that Harriet Tubman and others
– got together and formed the National Association of Colored Women which was an
organizing body to promote racial equality and suffrage across the clubs.
A daughter of former slaves growing up amid
Jim Crow-era prejudice, Mary Church Terrell served as the NACW's first and in that role she
continually emphasized to their white suffragist counterparts the dual sexual and racial barriers
women of color faced especially considering how prominent leaders like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton weren't exactly woke to it.
“A white woman has onlyone handicap to overcome, a great one, true, her sex; a colored woman faces two-her
sex and her race.” Even behind the scenes of the 1913 Women’s
Suffrage Parade in D.C., where this iconic photo was taken, segregation was alive and
not-so-well, with the organizers requesting Ida B. Wells and her Alpha Suffrage Club contingent
effectively move to the back of the bus and march separately from the white ladies. But Wells, per
usual, was having none of it and marched at the front of the parade anyhow.
FINALLY, 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920 at long last granting suffrage,
but women of color weren’t in the clear. Almost immediately, Southern states
in particular began passing legislation to disenfranchise black voters – a discriminatory
turn of events that along with segregation and persistent race-based violence would eventually pave the way for second-wave feminism.
Cliffhanger! Or is it a spoiler alert?