Black Suffragists
Colored Women as Voters, 1/2
“Colored Women as Voters.” The Crisis, September 1912. The Modernist Journals Project: Brown University and the University of Tulsa.
Colored Women as Voters, 2/2
“Colored Women as Voters.” The Crisis, September 1912. The Modernist Journals Project: Brown University and the University of Tulsa.
Document Text |
Summary |
| COLORED WOMEN AS VOTERS
By Adella Hunt Logan More and more colored women are studying public questions and civics. As they gain information and have experience in their daily vocations and in their efforts for human betterment they are convinced, as many other women have long ago been convinced, that their efforts would be more telling if women had the vote. |
COLORED WOMEN AS VOTERS
By Adella Hunt Logan More and more Black women are taking an interest in public issues and government. They have tried to make change and have come to the conclusion that they need the right to vote to make a real impact. |
| The fashion of saying “I do not care to meddle with politics” is disappearing among the colored woman faster than most people think, for this same woman has learned that politics meddle constantly with her and hers. | Saying “I’m not interested in politics” is going out of fashion among Black women because Black women have realized that politics has a direct impact on their lives. |
| Good women try always to do good housekeeping. Building inspectors, sanitary inspectors and food inspectors owe their positions to politics. Who then is so well informed as to how these inspectors perform their duties as the women who live in inspected districts and in inspected houses, and who buy food from inspected markets? | Good women always try to take good care of their homes and families. Building inspectors, health inspectors, and food inspectors are all politically appointed. Who would be better to oversee these officials than the woman who live in the inspected buildings and buy the inspected food? |
| Adequate school facilities in city, village, and plantation districts greatly concern the black mother. But without a vote she has no voice in educational legislation, and no power to see that her children secure their share of public-school funds. | Black mothers are very concerned with making sure there are good schools for their children. But they don’t have the right to vote, so they have no voice in the way school money is spent. |
| Negro parents admit that their own children are not all angels, but they know that the environments which they are helpless to regulate increase misdemeanor and crime. They know, too, that officers, as a rule, recognize few obligations to voteless citizens. | Black parents know that their children are not angels, but they also know that they are helpless to improve the conditions their children grow up in. They also know that police do not care much about the rights of people who cannot vote. |
| When colored juvenile delinquents are arraigned, few judges or juries feel bound to give them the clemency due a neglected class. | When Black children commit crimes, few white judges or juries acknowledge the difficult situations they were raised in. |
| When sentence is pronounced on these mischievous youngsters, too often they are imprisoned with adult criminals and come out hardened and not helped by their punishment. | When sentences are passed, the children are too often imprisoned with adults. They emerge from prison hardened by their punishment. |
| When colored mothers ask for a reform school for a long time they receive no answer. They must wait while they besiege their legislature. Having no vote they need not be feared or heeded. The “right of petition” is good; but it is much better when well voted in. | When Black mothers ask for reform schools for children convicted of crimes, no one listens. Without the vote, no one needs to listen to them. The right to ask the government for things is good, but it is much better when the people asking can vote. |
| Not only is the colored woman awake to reforms that may be hastened by good legislation and wise administration, but where she has the ballot she is reported as using it for the uplift of society and for the advancement of the State. | Not only are Black women aware of the reforms that can be made by good government and laws, but it has been seen that when Black women have the vote, they use it to uplift all of society. |
| In California the colored woman bore her part creditably in the campaign for equal suffrage and also with commendable patriotism in the recent presidential nomination campaign. | In California Black women campaigned for women’s suffrage and participated in the national presidential election. |
| The State of Washington, new with its votes-for-women law, has already had a colored woman juror. Why not? She is educated and wealthy and wants to protect the best interests in her State. | In Washington, where the right to vote is new for women, a Black woman has already served on a jury. Why not? She is educated and wealthy and wants to protect the best interests of her state. |
| Colorado has never had better school officers than her women have made. Judge Ben. Lindsey is as popular with colored women voters as he is with white women voters. The juvenile court over which he presides gives the boy a square deal regardless of color. A majority of mothers and fathers can be counted on every time to support such an official. | Colorado has never had better school officers than the ones women have voted in. Judge Ben Lindsey is popular with Black and white women voters, and he treats young criminals fairly, regardless of their race. |
| Wyoming, Utah and Idaho, the other full suffrage States, have few colored women, but these few are not hurt by, but helped by, their voting privileges. | There are not many Black women in Wyoming, Utah, and Idaho, but the Black women there have benefitted from their right to vote. |
| In the States that are now conducting woman suffrage campaigns the colored woman is as interested and probably as active as conditions warrant. This is notably true of Ohio and Kansas. | In places where women’s suffrage is being considered, Black women are very interested and active. This is especially true in Ohio and Kansas. |
| A number of colored women are active members of the National Woman Suffrage Association. They are all well informed and are diligent in the spread of propaganda. Women who see that they need the vote see also that the vote needs them. Colored women feel keenly that they may help in civic betterment, and that their broadened interests in matters of good government may arouse the colored brother, who for various reasons has become too indifferent to his duties of citizenship. | Some Black women are members of the National Woman Suffrage Association, and they work hard to support the national campaign. Women who want the right to vote also see that government needs them. Black women strongly believe that they will help improve governments, and that they will inspire Black men to take more interest in government. |
| The suffrage map shows that six States have equal political rights for women and men, and that a much larger number have granted partial suffrage to women. In all these the colored woman is taking part, not as fully as she will when the question is less of an experiment, not as heartily as she will when her horizon broadens, but she bears her part. | Six states have granted women full suffrage, and many more have granted partial suffrage. Black women are politically active in all these states. Maybe not as active as they will be someday, but they are doing their part. |
| This much, however, is true now: the colored American believes in equal justice to all, regardless of race, color, creed or sex, and longs for the day when the United States shall indeed have a government of the people, for the people and by the people—even including the colored people. | This much is true now: Black Americans believe in equal rights for all people regardless of race, color, creed, or sex. They long for the day when the US will have a government that is truly of the people, for the people, and by the people—even people of color. |
“Colored Women as Voters.” The Crisis, September 1912. The Modernist Journals Project: Brown University and the University of Tulsa.
Background
Black women played an active role in the fight for women’s suffrage. But anti-Black racism was widespread in the US in the early 1900s. This meant Black suffragists had to contend with the combined effects of both gender and racial bias in their fight for equal rights. Major organizations like the National American Woman Suffrage Association feared they would lose white supporters if they accepted too many Black members. They invited select Black leaders to attend meetings or speak at conventions, but most Black suffragists were excluded from their events.
In response, Black women formed their own suffrage organizations. These organizations empowered Black women to fight for the vote and raised awareness about the wider struggles of the Black community.
For more about suffrage for Black women, watch the video below.
This video is from “Women Have Always Worked,” a free massive open online course produced in collaboration with Columbia University.
About the Resources
This article was written by Adella Hunt Logan for a special issue of The Crisis. Adella was an influential leader in the Black community. She and her husband were teachers at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, where she organized monthly suffrage meetings.
Vocabulary
- suffrage: The right of voting; in this era, suffrage often referred specifically to women’s suffrage, or the right of women to vote.
- suffragist: A person who campaigned to win women the right to vote.
- The Crisis: A magazine published by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
- Tuskegee Institute: An Alabama school founded by Booker T. Washington in 1881 for the purpose of training Black teachers.
Discussion Questions
- What does this article reveal about Black women’s role in the women’s suffrage movement?
- Why does Adella Hunt Logan believe Black women deserve the right to vote?
- What issues facing the Black community does Adella Hunt Logan highlight in this article? Why do you think she chose these specific issues?
- Who is the audience for this article? What do you think Adella Hunt Logan is trying to accomplish?
Suggested Activities
- AP Government Connections:
- 3.10: Social movements and equal protection
- 3.11: Government responses to social movements
- To learn more about the opinions and contributions of Suffragists of color, see:
- The NAACP Fights to Protect Voters
- Reaching Spanish-Speaking Voters
- Race and the Suffrage Parade
- Mabel Lee on the Women’s Suffrage Movement
- Race and Suffrage
- Zitkala-Ša Advocates for Indigenous Rights
- Princess Dawn Mist
- The Politics of Respectability
- Life Story: Marie Louise Bottineau Baldwin
- Life Story: Nina Otero-Warren
- Pair this document with the photograph taken by anti-suffragists in Tennessee. Why might the women in the photograph (and those they represented) have posed a particular threat to Black suffragists? Why might Adella Hunt Logan’s article have been perceived as a threat to the women in the photograph (and those they represented)?
- Consider the many ways Black women fought to legitimize their citizenship and fight discrimination by studying this source alongside Fannie Barrier Williams’s description of Black life in Chicago, the account of two Black social workers on the French front, the photograph of the 1917 silent march, the photograph of Atlanta Neighborhood Union, and the life stories of Mary Church Terrell, Madam C. J. Walker, Ida B. Wells, and Maggie Walker.
Themes
AMERICAN IDENTITY AND CITIZENSHIP; ACTIVISM AND SOCIAL CHANGE
New-York Historical Society Curriculum Library Connections
- For more about Black experiences in this era, see Black Citizenship in the Age of Jim Crow.
