Black Women’s Integral Role in the Women’s Suffrage Movement
Sometimes overlooked in America’s history
I remember learning about the Women’s Suffrage Movement in junior and senior high school. Instructors taught us how pioneers like Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and other white women fought tirelessly to gain the same voting rights for women as white men.
The assumption has always been that since African Americans were enslaved during that period, they couldn’t possibly have either played any part in the movement or offered any meaningful contributions if they did. But this notion could not be further from the truth.
Throughout the struggle for women's rights, black women were always in the trenches with white women and worked just as tirelessly despite facing greater opposition. Yet rarely have their efforts shared the same spotlight as those of their white counterparts.
What follows are the names of a few prominent black women who were involved in the Women’s Suffrage Movement and their contributions in not only securing the right to vote for all women but black men, too.
The Beginnings of a Movement
Many black women found themselves drawn to the women’s rights movement through their work advocating for the…
