African-American Woman Suffrage Movement

As the women's suffrage movement gained popularity, African-American women were increasingly marginalized. African-American women dealt not only with the sexism of being withheld the vote but also the racism of white suffragists. The struggle for the vote did not end with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. In some Southern states, African American women were unable to freely exercise their right to vote up until the 1960s. However, these difficulties did not deter African-American women in their effort to secure the vote.

In 1890, two rival organizations, the National Woman Suffrage Association and the American Woman Suffrage Association, merged to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). As NAWSA began gaining support for its cause, its members realized that the exclusion of African-American women would gain greater support, resulting in the adoption of a more narrow view of women's suffrage than had been previously asserted. NAWSA focused on enfranchisement solely for white women. African-American women began experiencing the "Anti-Black" women's suffrage movement. The National Woman Suffrage Association considered the Northeastern Federation of Colored Women's Clubs to be a liability to the association due to Southern white women's attitudes toward black women getting the vote. Southern whites feared African-Americans gaining more political advantage and thus power; African-American women voters would help to achieve this change.

The women's suffrage movement began with women such as Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth, and it progressed to women like Ida B. Wells, Mary Church Terrell, Ella Baker, Rosa Parks, Angela Davis, and many others. All of these women played very important roles, such as contributing to the growing progress and effort to end African-American women's disenfranchisement. These women were discriminated against, abused, and raped by white southerners and northerners, yet they remained strong and persistent, and that strength has been passed down from generation to generation. It is still carried on in African-American families today. "African American women, have been political activists for their entire history on the American continent but long denied the right to vote and hold office, have resorted to nontraditional politics.

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