African American Women And The 19th Amendment
Women Emma Amos, my great-grandmother, witnessed the national adoption of the 19th Amendment, which recognized women’s right to vote.
The 1920 census record tells me that my GG Emma was of voting age. It also tells me she was married to Elbert Amos.
In the autumn of 1920, following the ratification of the 19th Amendment, millions of women nationwide cast their ballots in state and federal elections for the first time. At 28 years old, my great-grandmother was of voting age.
As such, Black women, like GG Emma, experienced firsthand the ways the Amendment fell short. That year, my great-grandmother lived in River Falls, Alabama, and worked as a farm laborer. Whether or not she voted was influenced by her local and state jurisdictions’ law s and how local officials enforced those laws.
Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, African American women, like those pictured here, formed their groups to focus on their specific interests. They also worked alongside African American men.
If GG Emma voted that year, her choice for president was likely the Republican candidate, Warren G. Harding. Since the American Civil War, African Americans had strongly supported the “Party of Lincoln” for its stance on racial equality. The Democratic candidate, James M. Cox, did not receive significant support from the African American community.
Within the suffragist movement, African American suffragists faced discrimination. Nannie Helen Burroughs, pictured above holding the banner, was one of many black (women) suffragists who fought against racial and gender inequalities.
Source: Library of Congress
Finally, the Republican Party today is not the Party of Lincoln. On March 20, 1854, a meeting in Wisconsin was the founding meeting of the Republican Party.
The Republicans rapidly gained supporters in the North, and in 1856 their first presidential candidate, John C. Fremont, won 11 of the 16 Northern states. By 1860, most Southern slave states were publicly threatening secession if the Republicans won the presidency.
In November 1860, Republican Abraham Lincoln was elected president over a divided Democratic Party, and six weeks later, South Carolina formally seceded from the Union. Within six more weeks, five other Southern states had followed South Carolina’s lead.
In April 1861, the Civil War began when Confederate shore batteries under General P.G.T. Beauregard opened fire on Fort Sumter in South Carolina’s Charleston Harbor.
Source: History.com