RD: That’s why, when we talk about rights for women, we also have to talk about slavery. African-American women must continue the struggle for voting rights after ratification of the 19th Amendment, because, of course, Jim Crow laws are going to continue to disenfranchise so many black Americans, men and women Martha: And that campaign will not end in 1920. The story, as she puts it, began well before 1848, not in traditional suffrage associations, but in anti-slavery societies, churches and political party conventions. Rosario Dawson: Speaking to us again is historian Martha Jones. Black women don't participate in the Seneca Falls meeting, but they've already been for decades at work on their own fight for political power. Martha: The way black women distinguish themselves is that their story doesn't begin in 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York.
R: And now in this centennial year, as we look back on suffrage history, WE think there’s a pretty high bar when it comes to being honest about the role of race and racism. Simultaneously, they are holding a high bar for the nation as a whole when they decry both racism and sexism. They are leveling by the 1820s a critique of racism and sexism. Martha: African-American women by the 1820s are beginning to ask pointed questions about their relationship to the body politic, their relationship to power. She’s a professor of history at Johns Hopkins University and the author of Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote and Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All Martha: African-American women are no different than any community of Americans in that they see access to the ballot as a way to participate in the body politic and to enjoy power and influence around law and policy in the United States. And their stories tell us they had as much - and sometimes more - at stake in the struggle, as white women. African American women suffragists were fighting for justice all over the country, and had been for decades.
And so I think there was always that emphasis on, like, let your voice be heard and make sure that you participate in your own civic engagement. This emphasis on the importance of voting and her great-grandmother’s legacy was constantly with Duster when she was growing up.ĭuster: I grew up hearing never ending, you know, people, white folk who fought for this right. In 1913, Wells founded the Alpha Suffrage Club, which was the first suffrage organization for black women in Chicago. And of course, she also wanted to empower women. Wells moved to Chicago at the age of 32, she was already an established activist in the fight for civil rights and anti-lynching, as well as an investigative journalist. And she worked with the League of Women Voters and the city to get her great-grandmother’s name recognized. She’s Wells’ great-granddaughter and a public speaker and educator. Wells Drive, in front of the Harold Washington Library, which was named after the city’s first black mayor, is Michelle Duster. And so for Wells to be both African-American and female, I guess she's a two-fer. And it's the first street name in Chicago, in downtown Chicago after any woman or any person of color. And wonder how she got here.ĭuster: It's the first street name change in the city of Chicago in over 60 years. Wells Drive, you notice a new name on the block. And you wouldn’t have thought much of it.īut now when you turn onto Ida B.
Retta: Only a couple of years ago, if you were driving in downtown Chicago from the expressway toward Lake Michigan or walking down the road past the Auditorium Theater, you’d be on a street called Congress Parkway.
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