Suffrage by Ellen Carol DuBois

Author:Ellen Carol DuBois
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2020-02-24T16:00:00+00:00

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The one hitch in plans for the parade was the question of African American women’s participation. Washington, D.C., once the vibrant national center of African American activism, had fallen victim to the invidious spirit of Jim Crow, and African American women were now marginalized in the suffrage movement there. Moreover, the newly installed Democratic Congress was controlled by its all-white southern wing.

Southern Democrats were opposed to any federal suffrage involvement, and some were even calling for repealing the Fifteenth Amendment, the single constitutional restraint on state voter policy. Southern states had succeeded in disfranchising black men, among other ways by claiming that they had misused their political rights and also sexually harassed and assaulted white women. Black women had no history of such inflammatory charges against them and southern white political leaders realized it would be much more challenging to defraud them of their rights. For their part, suffragists realized that to bring the white South into their movement would require great delicacy. The race problem faced by Paul in 1913 pointed to a political situation that would only become more challenging for suffragists. Suffragists’ “southern strategy” came back to life.

Meanwhile African American suffragism was growing in strength and determination. The reaction among white suffragists to this new enthusiasm was divided: while some white suffragists sought to make sure that black women participated, others were opposed, sure that the presence of black women would inflame racial prejudices. In setting parade policy, Alice Paul was caught between her abolitionist/Quaker origins and her belief that any substantial black participation would distract from her goal of advancing the woman suffrage constitutional amendment.

In the end, Paul followed NAWSA “states’ rights” policy by allowing local groups to set their own racial standards, hoping that the few black parade participants she expected would not be particularly noticeable if they were dispersed among white marchers. However, one substantial group—several dozen Howard University students—was determined to march together, proudly displaying their banner, in the college division of the parade. In this case, Paul decided on a segregation policy—to separate the Howard group out from the larger college procession and surround them by friendly white men, presumably to shield them from hostile crowds.57

Cartoon by suffrage supporter Boardman Robinson, New York Tribune, March 1, 1913, before the Washington, D.C., suffrage parade.

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