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This study of African American women's roles in the suffrage movement breaks new ground. Rosalyn Terborg-Penn draws from many original documents to take a comprehensive look at the African American women who sought the right to vote. She discovers numerous Black suffragists previously unknown. Analyzing the women's own stories, she examines why they joined the woman suffrage movement in the United States and how they participated in it - with white women, Black men, as members of African American women's organizations, or simultaneously in all three. Terborg-Penn further discusses their various levels of interaction and types of feminist philosophy. Noting that not all African American woman suffragists were from elite circles, Terborg-Penn finds representation from working-class and professional women as well. They came from all parts of the nation. Some employed radical, others conservative means to gain the right to vote. Black women, however, were unified in working to use the ballot to improve not only their own status, but the lives of Black people in their communities. Drawing from innumerable sources, Terborg-Penn argues that sexism and racism prevented African American women from voting and from full participation in the national suffrage movement. Following the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, state governments in the South, enacted policies which disfranchised African American women, with many white suffragists closing their eyes to the discriminatory acts. Despite efforts to keep Black women politically powerless, Terborg-Penn contends that the Black suffrage was a source of empowerment. Every political and racial effort to keep African American women disfranchised met with their active resistance until Black women achieved full citizenship.… (more)
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The long struggle for the Nineteenth Amendment was inextricably intertwined with the issue of race. Terborg-Penn has amply researched the history of Black women in the struggle for its passage. There are some prominent names that will be familiar, in particular Sojourner Truth. But there were so many more articulate Black women who struggled for universal suffrage and were tireless organizers, yet, were rebuffed by their white colleagues when it was expedient. These Black women had a double struggle - for gender and for race. Once the Nineteenth Amendment was passed, Black women (and men) found, in the South, many obstacles to registering to vote - obstacles so high that they resulted in the disenfranchisement of many Black voters.
This was a difficult book to read as it is a side of American history that we don’t see in text books. But as informed citizens we must understand it as we see it played out on our daily news.