“For the Uplifting of Her Race”: Advocacy for the Vote by Women of Color in the Early 20th Century United States
As the 20th century commenced, a third generation of suffragists took stage in the United States. They continued a journey towards women’s enfranchisement that formally began in 1848 at the Seneca Falls Convention. Women of color were a part of this struggle from its nascent stages but occupy a peripheral role in the traditional suffrage narrative that centralizes elite, white women. The multifaceted identities of suffragists who participated in other social movements like anti-lynching activist Ida B. Wells-Barnett and Native rights advocate Zitkála-Šá were erased by exclusionary notions of who suffragists were. Their compartmentalization in the historical record is not reflective of their values or the impact of their work. Women of color came to suffrage activism through unique channels unlike those of white women. They were not monolithic in their framing of suffrage, but the importance of elevating their entire communities regardless of gender served as a centripetal force in their work. Owing both to exclusion by white women and the distinct issues present in marginalized communities, women of color engaged with suffrage work both within and outside of white women’s organizations. I argue that women of color, across racial and ethnic lines, formed distinct suffrage movements simultaneously separate and part of the mainstream movement of middle-class white women. Their activism constituted a multilayered system of advocacy that recognized and employed the intersection between racial, ethnic, and gender identities in order to pursue full citizenship rights and dignity not only for their female peers, but their entire communities.