Women’s Equality Day

Empowering WomenAdvancing Racial Justice

Aug 4

Women’s Equality Day, August 26, marks the 106th anniversary of the passing of the 19th Amendment prohibiting “states and the federal government from denying the right to vote to citizens of the United States on the basis of sex.” This amendment granted women the right to vote, but ratification did not necessarily ensure that all women had that right.

The reality is that this historic milestone was only granted to white women—state laws, violence, and discrimination actively prevented women of color from accessing this right for many more decades. And to this day, far too many women, particularly Black, Indigenous, and women of color, immigrant women, LGBTQ+ women, low-income women, and disabled women, face barriers not only to the ballot box, but to the resources, support, and opportunities they need to help them live thriving, healthy lives.

The history of women’s suffrage in the United States, like so much of history, is a complicated web of competing and conflicting agendas and beliefs, full of compromise, and most certainly non-linear. We thank YWCA USA and our sister organization, YWCA of Minneapolis, MN, for the following historical context. We’ve added a few links to learn more about the history of women’s suffrage in North Carolina and Western North Carolina at the bottom of this post.

A Broken Allyship: Abolitionists and Suffragists

Before the Civil War, black and white abolitionists and suffragists were joined together in a common cause and were closely allied together. But in time, white women leaders of the suffrage movement decided that in order to be successful, they would need to gain the support of white men and women in the South. By the late 1800s, they began to push black women away from the movement and distance the suffrage movement from the abolition movement.

Black women leaders such as Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Maria W. Stewart, Henrietta Purvis, Harriet Forten Purvis, Sarah Remond and Mary Ann Shadd Cary joined forces to continue to push for equality, not just based on gender, but also on race.

Marginalized at Women’s Suffrage Meetings

The mainstream suffrage movement continued its racially discriminatory practices and even condoned white supremacist ideologies in order to garner southern support for white women’s voting rights. Consequently, African American women became increasingly marginalized and discriminated against at women’s suffrage meetings, campaigns and marches.

Recognizing the History

So, as we celebrate the passage of the 19th Amendment and the accomplishments of women such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, we must remember that these rights also came at the expense of women of color and indigenous women. It wasn’t until the Civil Rights movement and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that local governments were stopped from engaging in tactics that kept African Americans (men and women) from the right to vote. And even today, systemic voting disenfranchisement, like voter-ID legislation, is keeping citizens of color from casting their votes.