Alpha Suffrage Club

The Alpha Suffrage Club is believed to be the first black women's suffrage association in the United States. It began in Chicago, Illinois in 1913 under the initiative of Ida B. Wells-Barnett and her white colleague, Belle Squire. The Club aimed to reinforce African American involvement in the struggle for women's suffrage, due to African American women being unable to be involved in the National American Women Suffrage Association (NAWSA). The Alpha Suffrage Club was established to partially give a voice to women who could not represent their selves individually, and worked specifically towards giving a voice to black women, as well as to “politicize” black women into the government system. In 1916, the club had nearly 200 members, including well-known female suffrage activists Mary E. Jackson, Viola Hill, Vera Wesley Green, and Sadie L. Adams. Within the next three years the group burgeoned into the thousands. The women were motivated by and sought to put an end to the countless lynchings of African Americans.

In the late 19th Century, African Americans withstood immense difficulties in terms of racial abuse, social inequality, and they even faced the cruel lynchings of the Jim Crow south. And unfortunately for African American women of this era, they were ranked lowest in social acceptance. Black women's role was extremely subservient to men for they were denied access to vote, access to a quality education, and access to any social mobility. Therefore they did not have a life of ease or relaxation. The role of black women was mainly confined to domestic responsibilities such as the rearing of children, housekeeping, feeding the family, and other household duties. The wives of black farm men were also charged with working the fields and refining their harvest.

Moreover, due to their very low social status, black women were not usually guaranteed the legal protection of the law. African American women were often abused and raped by their male counterparts and this was often done with impunity on the part of their attackers. In the late 1800s many women were murdered through the practice of lynching. On a false accusation alone, a black female of the south could be hung by her neck amongst a mob of white neighbors. They could be lynched based on lies or sheer ignorance while they were denied a trial or any judicious outlet to prove innocence. This would fuel Ida B Wells and her crusade against lynching for they did not have protection from the state or courts. Thus African American women were denied basic human rights despite the law having "freed" them from bondage.

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