Joy Reid Instagram – Today is #womensequalityday when we commemorate ratification of the 19th Amendment to the constitution granting women the right to vote. The story though is more complicated…
Twenty-two women from @dstinc1913 were among the Black women who sought to join the landmark 1913 suffrage parade in Washington D.C. organized by leading suffragists Alice Paul and Lucy Burns for the National American Womam Suffrage Association (NAWSA). Instead of being welcomed, the Black suffragists were told they would have to match at the back of the procession in segregation. They refused.
And while all of the 250,000 or so women who joined the march faced jeers and catcalls from men who stood along the road, the Black women also faced savage beatings, including from some women marchers. The violence was so pronounced and unimpeded by DC police that congressional hearings were later held to get to the bottom of it.
In addition, there was controversy over the announced inclusion of Dawn Mist, “the beautiful daughter of Chief Three Bears of the Glacier Park Indians,” who supposedly would ride through the procession on horseback in a buckskin dress along with other representatives of “the wildest type of womanhood” side by side with white women of the finest class. Turns out, Dawn Mist was fictional, and an invention of the public relations office of The Great Northern Railroad, who hired at least three native actresses to portray her. (Source: National Parks Service)
Despite all of this the march did happen, and eventually the Susan B Anthony suffragw and the 19th Amendment were passed by Congress and ratified on August 18, 1920 granting women the right to vote, though Black women would have to wait until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to see the amendment implemented for them nationwide.
The right to vote is precious and recent for so many of us. We really ought to use it.
Slides from @whenweallvote
Find out how to register at @votedotorg
#vote2024 #vote | Posted on 27/Aug/2024 01:48:53
