Transcripts For CSPAN3 African American Womens Activism Suffrage 20240711

African women became involved in womens suffrage and other political movements in the first half of the 20th century. United states capitalists already and the womens Suffrage Commission hosted this event doctor martha jones was the very first scholar that we recruited for this symposium. Back in the day when you could see one another, i went over to baltimore and we had coffee and got to know each other a little bit. She agreed that she would come and keynote our conference. So we are so honored. Doctor jones is a historian, a writer and a commentator whose work has focused on how black americans have shaped the history of american democracy. Her most recent book, which just came out, is called vanguard, how black when women overcame barriers won the vote and insisted on equality for all. This book is fascinating. You have to get it. It starts with doctor joneses grandmother, Soucie Soucie jones, and i must admit i have not finished the book, but it has Amazing Stories of women who really have made a difference. We look forward, dr. Jones, to hearing your story. So let me just tell you a little bit about doctor jones. She was born in Central Harlem and was originally trained as an attorney and was working on social justice issues after being trained at in new york. So at the law school, she became a Public Interest lawyer and spent nearly ten years representing homeless people, people with mental illness, women living with aids. And in 1994, she was awarded fellowship on the future of the city of new york at Columbia University based on her lawyering work. And there, her career took an interesting turn as she was drawn to the Research Writing of eric foreigner and followed his career, linked history and scholarship and social justice. And she discovered what she called her inner archive, rat, which she will have to explain to us what that is. Learn the politics of history, and stayed at columbia to earn a ph. D. In history, and from their spent the next 16 years teaching history, law, and africanamerican studies at the university of michigan. In 2017, she came to baltimore as the black alumni president ial professor at john hopkins university. There, since then she has won too many awards to mention. Let me just say she isnt a acclaimed scholar. And in 2019 her alma mater, awarded her a doctor of law on a honourary basis. And each spring, she and her husband who is french go back and forth across the atlantic, although they havent been able to do that this year. But shes definitely a citizen of the world. So we are very honored to have doctor martha jones share with us whats really is the impact of black women who now have the right to vote, and will fight every day to make sure that every person has the right to vote and the politics of this democracy. Thank you to you jane and to the u. S. Capital of historic society. I am extremely honored to have been a part of what have been extraordinary series of conversations and insights. And i look forward to the work that we will do together out of this experience. So thank you so much. My theme is the 19th amendment, and how this year we are i think striving to both mark the centennial, and moved from if you will mid to history. Myth. The story of the amendment is one facet of our National Reckoning with the pass for me. Especially a reckoning with the rule that racism has played in shaping the nation. I hope that through the opportunity to better understand what happened in 1920 we might fashion new ways forward in our own moment. Now some people may know that if you mentioned to me that we are celebrating this centennial of the 19th amendment i might current a little bit. Dont get me wrong. As Jean Campbell said, i just finished a book about the history of black women in the boat, and i am as interested as anyone in this black history year and it significant for our nations past and present. Still i cant quite bring a spirit of celebration to the occasion. I worry it might get in the way of the story i have to share with you today. When we appreciate that the open secret about the 19th amendment in 1920, the open secret was that black women would continue in many parts of the country to be disenfranchised. That fact of the 19th amendment alone means that it fits awkwardly with events with shows that would feature lake period costumes and marching bands. Though i have enjoyed some of those. The 1920 members of congress, the 1920s state law makers who understood nothing in there terms prohibited states from using poll taxes, literally taxes and understanding clauses to keep black women from registering to vote. Nothing in the new amendment promised to curb with everyone already knew was rampant intimidation and violence that threatened black women who went to polling places. Voting rights and voting suppression handinhand in 1920. Now fortunately, im a historian. That means that nothing in my job requires me to plan commemorative festivities. Instead, my job is to cut through half truths and myths about the past, and equipped us with critical tools that i think we need to use the path to think about the future of our democracy. 25 years ago, historian new look back at the celebrations that marked 500 years into 1992. 14 92 skis. Me the year in which Christopher Columbus was once upon a time, at least it was said that columbus was set to have discovered the americas. And trio warned historians away from such occasions last that we be sanitize from partial truths and even myths that the occasion demanded. The difficult history of the european contact and conquest with Indigenous People of the americas, including that columbus was muted or amid it all together, in efforts to cast anniversary in 1992 as celebration. Such framings may have helped tourists and souvenir sellers but they did too little to generate critical understanding of how the colonialism devastated people and affected the people on the lands of the hemisphere. Why i stayed home from the celebrations i know the wall, centennial of the 19th amendment marks a milestone of the american Voting Rights. You withheld from americans in our own time and encourage us to recommit to the ongoing war of ensuring Voting Rights of all americans. But im eager to contribute to stories a black women to understanding of the 19th amendment. But as a nation were not quite ready yet for that grants celebration. The promise of Voting Rights for all still remains in the horizon. So what happened in august of 1920 when the 19th amendment became part of the constitution . Im gonna focus today on two myths that i think still pervade the interpretations of that scene. And the first is that when the amendment became law, all American Woman got the vote, and youve probably heard even heard it said that in 1920, women were now guaranteed the right to vote. Thats one myth. The second is that on the contrary, and it is a myth that although runs contrary to the first, there is the myth that no black women got Voting Rights in 1920. That racism kept black american women from the polls. And i think what we will do today is explore those, and look at the ways in which history sheds inevitably a much more nuanced light on those two myths. So this anniversary year, i want to start by looking at august of 1920, when the u. S. Secretary of state certified that the 19th amendment to the constitution had indeed been ratified by the required 36 states. What did the amendment say . The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any state on a on account of sex. So what precisely did that mean for american . Women now lost the reserve the belt for men violated the constitution. No longer could six be a barrier to voter eligibility. And still the, 19th amendment did not promise any american women vote. Law state law still kept women from the polls, based upon age, citizenship, residency, mental competence. American women who married nonu. S. Citizens in 1920 still faced the naturalization im now a loss of their Voting Rights. The women who showed up to register in the fall of 1920 confronted many hurdles even if sex wasnt one of them. Of course there was one additional barrier to these votes that persisted even after in this was racism. It was true that the 15th amendment in 1870, 15 years before had expressly forbid states from denying the vote because of race. But by 1920, lawmakers in the south and in some parts of the west has set in place hurdles that while silent on their face about race, had the net effect of disenfranchising black americans. Paul taxes, literally taxes had effectively kept many black men from casting their ballots since the 1890s, unchecked intimidation and the threat of lynching sealed the deal. Local voting officials had effectively obstructed a color line without expressly invoking race. Did america win the vote in 1920 . We have to say not all women. African american women into many states became merely the equals if you will say and her husbands in their fathers state laws disenfranchise them and the spirit of the 15th of this and 19th. Amendments registration numbers reflected the effects of these laws, and in the fall of 1920, black women represented themselves to officials but many found that the votes were closed. What was going on . One example from kent county got, delaware. Reports were that black women turned out in unusually large numbers. In the judgment of the journalists, but officials refused them. Because, they failed to comply with the constitutional tests. What was going on and delaware in many places . Black women were being presented with text of the u. S. Constitution, required not only to read that portion of the constitution, but then to interpret that portion of the constitution. When i teach this to my students, i challenge them to think on their feet and under the scrutiny of me standing in for their reluctant official to explain, for example the editorial college. It is not easy to do, many black women do not succeed in overcoming these kind of hurdles in 1920. And still, black women were voting. The first wave of black women voters were unleashed in individual states, that have been meeting making women suffers a lot. And california, started in 1911. And illinois start in 1913, new york 1917. Black women were already experienced voters by the 1920s. Even more, managed to register and cast ballots in the fall of that year, in the week of the 19th amendment. How did they do that . One example from st. Louis missouri, where black women came together under the offices of the tillis weekly branch of the wide w. See a, name for the 18 century poet. Had to pay pull taxes, how the past literacy test. How to grapple with the grudging officials. They even managed to attract a men to the Suffrage School who thought that perhaps, 1920 represented a moment in which they might reclaim the voting rates that they had lost decades before. Black women turned out in st. Louis, and the papers reported that nearly every woman in the city registered that season. Black women came to represent somewhere between ten and 20 of new voters. The stakes were high in st. Louis. A city where local officials were abusing referendum to impose housing segregation, for the first time by law in the city of st. Louis. Black women are turning out, not only to realize the own personal ambition, not only to further womens interests, but to contribute to the struggle against the had a decided consequence at the ballot box of st. Louis. The other example i will offer this afternoon comes from daytona, florida. There, suffragists, club leader, and educator nayeri had run a very effective Voter Registration effort in 1919, a 1920. Throughout the state of florida to get black women registered when the 19th amendment took effect. Now, buffoon, who run a school in daytona for African American girls learned that the wave of violence and intimidation that had overtaken the state of florida by the fall of 2020 was going to visit her very close to home. The ku klux klan, announced that they would gather on election eve in 1920 in daytona, indeed, they appeared on masks, in horseback, im full regalia. They both across, and then much to the ground to the balloons girl school, today is bathroom university in an effort to intimidate the next day, black women did turn out. We learn something about the extent of the organization, and their tactics. Because they turned out together, in large numbers to the polls. This is understood to be a tactic that will if not repel, discourage the violence that the clan members had threatened the night before. So bethune and her patrons have some kind of the success in the fall of 1920, but the violence in florida persists to such a degree that the clan again will visit mrs. Bethune school on election eve 1922. And by that fall, black americans in florida will regretfully concede the unchecked violence, and im intimidation, unchecked by the 15th and 19 amendments, had kept an importantly away from the polls. So, what are black women going to do in the fall of 1920 as they look out across the terrain of the nation . And take in the incompleteness of the 19th amendment, the patchwork that is voting rates for black women, even after a federal amendment. Lets visit in 1920, she was the president of the national of social mission of colored women, the largest Political Organization to represent black women in that year, more than 300,000 members across the country. Highly quinn brown had been an educator, a club leader, who had led the and asi w. Suffrage department during the years on the wrote of the 19th amendment. In the fall of 1920 when round is now president in charge and charged with leading black women through the new political challenge. What comes after the amendment to the constitution, the nacw resolves way is demanded, what is cool choir now. Federal reserve returned to the 15th of the 19th amendment that would come that, and undo the state laws that are continuing to keep black women from the polls. This is the objective that quinn brown and the women of the and asi w. Set out for themselves, and now they have to church our way forward. Hallie quinn brown its been appreciate or of the capacities of the Leaders Within the organizations like the National Association, the American National Suffrage Association, the National Womens party who had led the campaign for the ratification of the 19th amendment. Quinn brown goes so far to call on alice paul, she wants to be a part of the celebration that alice is planning, it will mark the ratification of the 19th amendment. She wants black women to be there. Importantly, she wants to make a proposal to alice paul, one that would lead to a linkage to black and white women organizations that were working towards the federal legislation that Hallie Quinn Brown and the women of the nacw are after. Hallie quinn brown and the delegation of black women will call alice paul in the winter of 1921 during what turned out to be the last meeting of the National Womens party, and she will ask paul for just that. A Political Alliance that will continue the struggle for womens votes, that will work towards womens universal votes through the winning federal and what we undulation know. Of course she will fold up on the business other National Womens party and importantly move on by 1923 to call for an equal rights and then went to the constitution, a cause that is still alive and has been a subject of much struggle and activism, even in our own time. But this turn of events leaves African American women to, in essence, build a new movement for womens Voting Rights, one that they will partner in with African American men. It is a movement that will continue to on the one hand work the ground game of womens politics, perhaps best exemplified by the work of an African American women in the city of chicago who will not only become important Republican Party operatives but will use their power at the ballots to see to it that for the First Time Since 1901 in 1928, an African American candidate will be elected to congress and head to washington. Black women learn how to use the voting power that they have to change the outcome particularly on the local and state level. They will be part of the Legal Campaign waged importantly by the naacp. That campaign that will bring an end to pull taxes, to writes in the primaries. To grandfather classes. This effort and both lobbying and litigation on the part of the devil acp will be a critical part of the story. These are the women, these are the seeds of womens work that continues into the modern civil rights era, the courageous and dangerous work that we associate with women like fanny blue baker, septum a clark, and ella baker. The work at the grassroots, extraordinarily arduous work that requires not only the ascent but the assembly, and the risk taking of thousands of black americans across the american south. It is that campaign that will force the end ultimately of the hand of congress and that of president lyndon johnson, and will give us a Voting Rights act in 1965. It is that moment that is the culmination of the work that women like halle brown and those associated with the National Association of color women that have long done. And still, women dont have the unqualified wrote vote even in 2020. The Voter Suppression tactics that kept women from the polls in 1920 have changed and yet we recognize the way in which voter i. D. Laws shuttered polling places. Exact match requirements, the purging of voter rolls continue to provide american women of the vote, including women of color. The policies of voting officials, which do not care take the vote the right to vote are still with us as we watch officials fumble and missed the mark and in ensuring that all of us will get to the polls in november, 19 2020 or 1920. And still, i think its important to say that much has changed. Great deal about the Political Landscape for African American women in 2020 was for some americans unimaginable, and for Many Americans unspeakable 100 years ago. We can point to the ways in which African American women today organize to liberate invoke as a block, still changing the outcomes in state and local but even in contents contests of national consequence, i will point to 2017 and alabamas special Senate Election where African American women not only turned out disproportionately, they also ensured that the democratic candidate doug jones goes to the u. S. Senate. They flipped that seat from red to blue. We can look ahead to the ballots that many of us will cast in november and discover that somewhere between 120 and 130 black women are running for seats in congress this season. This is a number that dwarfs the record which had been set in 2016. That number had been 48. Black women coming to washington as a Political Force no longer as nearly firsts. And none of us have escape the fact of senator Kamala Harris is nomination to the democratic ticket. Perhaps like, me you tune in for her acceptance speech, it was a historic moment certainly. But senator harris told something about the history that had brought us there she spoke directly about her own mother and the influence of her mothers education, guidance, and role as a role model. Her mother as one of the women on whose shoulders she was standing in the summer of 2020. And then senator harris mean then senator harris name checked six women. Six women were very much woven into the story that i shared with you this afternoon. , a Rosemary Church terrell, the educator, education activist. The first president of the National Council excuse me the National Association of colored women. And a suffragists par excellence of the earliest 20th century, someone very much part of the story of how black women get to vote. Ida b. Wells, the journalist, social scientist anti suffrage activist and suffragists was also named checked by Kamala Harris. There is mary cobb the thin of florida who i have introduced. Diane nash who was on senator harris is list. The architect of this summer campaign. A woman who worked tires loosely and courageously through the fall philosophy of nonviolence to strategically went for black americans many of the civil war rights victories that we associate with that era including the Voting Rights act. Fanny from mississippi, whose grassroots organizing, and unparalleled courage in the state of mississippi brought her before news cameras today both still and moving including in 1964 during that years Democratic National convention when decried that convention and those who had seat eight mississippi delegation that had failed to get there by the scent of black voters in the state. For any who haim are looking to upturn the social order, racial, order political order in mississippi and across the country, and doing it before National News cameras. And i last, senator harris invoked invoked motley, not only a law graduate, thats something she certainly shared with senator harris but a member of the end double acps legal team. Doing that essential litigation work to challenge jim crow in the realm of political rights. Confidence bigger motley who goes on to run for office, hold office in the city of new york and in the new york state legislature, and of course will be appointed to the federal bench, the first black woman to sit there being appointed by president london be johnson. These would be the women today still grapple with the legacies and the fact of Voter Suppression in our own time. Surely, but they do so with a new sort of access, a new sort of influence, and do so as a force in american politics. So with that, i think i will end and say thank you again so much to our hosts for convening us yet again in this wonderful series of conversations, and i think im going to invite back Jane Campbell if im not mistaken. Jane is going to join me for some conversation and i think for some question and answer. So thanks chain for doing this with me. Well thank you so much martha for that. I was a very informative presentation, it really is so much to think about and so much to understand. I have a couple of questions myself and then were starting to get some questions from our audience. I would remind the audience that you can put your questions in the queue and a box. And i will try to make sure that we get as many answered as possible while we have the doctor with us. So you described so ably the continuing struggle of black women to have the right to vote to exercise the right to vote. Can you share, we think now when people talk about the black vote, invariably they talk about the fact that black women or more reliable voters in many instances then black men. How is the Voter Suppression from you know jim crow forward treated women differently than men . Thats a great question. One of the things that we know out of the lessons of 1920 is the part of one Voter Suppression aims to do is in a sense treat women just as it treats men. And so for example, in 1920 there would be those Southern States the southern legislatures that quickly have to amend their pull tax provisions which had been written as a position on manus requirement of men, now have to be written to now also apply to women. So theres a way in which Voter Suppression historically has looked in a sense to override differences of gender. But there is no question from my research that African American women face a distinct set of risks when it comes to political activism. When it comes to work in the political sphere, when it comes to coming out to the polls. There is a denigration that the women of the National Association of colored women are all too familiar with, its part of what binds them together. That is to say the kind of gendered racism that posits black women as unsuited to be ladies, unsuited to be mothers, unsuited to the citizens and more is a special denigration directed at black women. And at the same time, black women very much come to politics because part of the conditions that suppress them politically include the school surge of political violence. So among black suffragists is an important threat that points to the vulnerabilities of black women, and also the necessity of any movement for womens votes or womens rights, that Movement Must take up the special burdens of sexual violence. So today i think we can understand the ways in which there are echoes still on the one hand of Voter Suppression that is neutral on its face when it comes to gender, and still imposes its own special burdens on black women, including the scourge of violence and sexual violence. Thats a lot to think about. When you think of some of the ways in which violence against and wanting to go out to vote came lynching, and the violence came out against women came out a sexual violence. And how those threads, as you have looked at this overtime, your most current book is about the 19th amendment and the consequences, but you had previously written citizens and that all wound up together. So this whole question of the role of African Americans in american democracy is not something the you have a limitation around one years. So would you say that things have progressed or things have you know where do you see is the arc of history bending towards justice, or is it still wiggling back and forth . After writing vanguard, it became clear to me that it wasnt possible to tell the story of american Voting Rights as somehow, you know that arc depends towards justice. Especially as we sit here in 2020, seven years out from the u. S. Supreme Court Decision shelby versus holder which gutted the most powerful provisions of that Voting Rights act that African Americans had so profoundly sacrificed to win. That we live in a constitutional democracy the does not guarantee to any citizen the right to vote. And i think we could point to any generation, every generation has faced the necessity to define and redefine Voting Rights, and there have always been communities that have been faced with the struggle, the burden on the citizen to breathe meaning, give teeth and otherwise fully honor the spirit of democratizing moments like the 15th and the 19th amendment and the ratifications. And so if i had to sort of talk about the question of Voting Rights across the expansive registry and use that to anticipate what is ahead, at a minimum, whats ahead is an ongoing struggle over Voting Rights. It is taking one particular and pointed form in 2020. But whatever the outcome of the electoral contest in 2020, i dont think the struggle over Voting Rights will be extinguished. Struggling over Voting Rights is very much in the american way. Okay, well we have several questions from the audience, and two people have actually asked you to kind of put Dorothy Height into the narrative. She is one who we saw doing an awful lot of work with the march on washington and one of the few women who got some recognition for her leadership. How does she fit into your narrative . Thank you so much for introducing Dorothy Height into this. She does exemplify i think a threat of this story. Which is to say that importantly for black women, especially coming out of the jim crow era, politics is never we do sable to voting or holding office. And this is something the Dorothy Height not only knows well, practices well, i think in the tradition of a mary mcleod the thin, understanding that the relationships of politics, rushes relationships of patronage relationships in washington, that rollout of civil rights organizations has always been and continues to be for black americans an essential facet of how black women do politics and make politics. And for those of you who may not know Dorothy Height, i think thats precisely why she is in some wise akin to a dianne nash. She is an architect, shes a strategist shes a woman with extraordinary powers of persuasion, Like Mary Church Terrell, she knows how to work remarkably effectively with men who had no intention i think oftentimes of linking arms with her, linking arms with the National Council of color women. Dorothy height knew how to broker those kinds of relationships. And most importantly, i think she knew how to ensure the black American Woman would be able to use all of their talents, all the capacities, all their gifts, all their power in the interest of the collective. I think she was someone who never lost sight of that over a very long and distinguished career. So thank you so much for the chance to introduce her to this conversation. Taking that sort of strain of people we dont know or didnt know until, the symposium has been very intentional in trying to bring the stories of Diverse Voices in womens suffrage and in womens political activity. But one of our listeners rights in that shes a 60yearold white women who grew up in new York Public Schools and she got this beautiful pen for the archivist says vote for women in 2020, she gave it to her 22 year old daughter who said mom, not all women got the right to vote. She said why didnt i know that . What is wrong with our schools that story is not told. And maybe more importantly, her daughter knew it. Her 22 year old daughter knew it. So are we bringing that story in for the next generation or was it just an accident that she had an extremely smart 22 year old daughter . I want to see who her daughters teachers were right . But somewhere in there that work is being done. But there is an important fact story that i will just share briefly. For early generations of historians writing about women suffrage, there was six volume collection that was begun in the 18 eighties and finished in the 1920s called the history of womens suffrage. Some of its authors of the early volumes included says he susan anthony. These volumes are almost 6000 pages, they take a lot of room on the shelf, and i think for a long time we came to those volumes too much thinking that they might be even comprehensive. It took some critical reading of those volumes by womens historians for us to understand and i will mention doctor roslyn in the 19 seventies publishes a dissertation that reads those volumes critically from the perspective of African American women. And what we learned is that those volumes, while they are impressive and important, left out a great deal of the history of womens suffrage, despite the title, and especially belie did the rules the black american women played in the long struggle for the vote. So we inherited some sources that had to be taken on, and then we do the work of producing new histories that begin to as you suggest tell a much more complex, and perhaps critical version of this story, and i think we are still struggling with that. Some of you may have encountered some of the dust ups around the monument that are going up in this centennial year. And who are the figures that should be included . Who should be honored and valorized in connection with the Suffrage Centennial has not been a simple or easy question for. Us but i will say that for me we are at the beginning i think of a new era in understanding this in the centennial year, and conferences like this have made it possible for us to tell these histories, yes in classrooms, i spent a lot of time with k through 12 educators so that the history then i write makes it into those classrooms. I am teaching the history of women and the vote with my students this semester at Johns Hopkins who are writing their own biographies of lesserknown black women suffragists whose work is not making part of the record. So the work goes on. But i think the toughest part is where i began. Celebration year oftentimes is also a year in we would let which wed like to rest on myths and oversimplify the. Past a like the 1920 to 20time line because it opens up the space to say ok what happened in those hundred years after the amendment the 19th amendment was ratified . It opens up space for us to tell many lesser known stories including the one i shared today. I think one of the things that we approached but this is a celebration year also ought to be a reevaluation year. And that the nature of history is yes its happened in the past. But what gets told is often based on who is telling it. And we intentionally are bringing more Diverse Voices into telling the story. As that happens, your grandmother is part of the story. Not just my grandmother. My grandmother got into suffrage because she was all about prohibition. That was her. She was a Christian Womens Temperance Union person. That was a whole different movie. But she also grew up on a station in the underground railroad. So she had a sense of racial justice, and i had the privilege to know her because she lived to be 95. So there are stories that are so robust. But a couple other quick questions, we will run at a time if we dont get our folks right. One other question is that there is at least some written about women who were white women, who are opposed two women having the right to vote because they felt that somehow not having the right to vote for women could be in the home, and on the pedestal. Blah blah blah. There wasnt clearly, the black women, that message to didnt ring in black womens minds. Was there any back and forth were there a group of black women who were opposed to suffrage . How did they play . Even within the National Association of colored women there were differences, about, i think less about the ultimate merits of womens votes. But there are a lot of disagreements about how to get there. If someone Like Mary Church Terrell is comfortable and even eager for black women to keep one foot even in the most radical of suffrage politics on the road to the 19th amendment. Terrell will be part of the 1930 prayed in washington. She will pick it i think the only black woman along with her daughter fearless, they are the only black women participate in that action led by alice paul. Terrell is that committed, and concurs with those tactics. While somebody like Margaret Murray washington is another leader, also from alabama, tuskegee, who really cautions black women against becoming two embroiled in radical suffrage politics. Washington thinks its risky personally, and its risky politically. So while she is prepared to support Voter Education efforts among black women so that they will be prepared, if and when he 19th amendment is ratified, shes not prepared to recommend the women of the and asi w. Participate and participate in radical suffrage politics. And thats the important difference among black women. To take another turn, there were communities that were majority black communities. Is there any evidence that those communities that were majority black communities, that there was stronger Voter Participation . Were black women able to vote in local elections in those communities before they were able to vote in the federal election . Is there any information about that kind of history . Thank you for the question. Im going to refer you to the wonderful work of a historian at green state university, who is completing a book project, and is trying to answer that very question. One of the things the challenges i faced in my research for example, trying to look at localities in the state of north carolina, when i got to the state archives thinking that id be able to figure out who voted, when for whom, how many black women voted . It turned out those materials had not been preserved. And so while the state archives still includes the records of the aggregate votes, when we want to drill in oftentimes at this whats happening on the local level, we are not able to. In some places, we are aided by newspaper reports. Nearly all of which are partisan, frankly, and so they have to be read carefully. But there is no question that even in a large city like chicago that African American women are organized, deliberate and using their power at the polls even before 1920, to do precisely what the questioner is suggesting, to turn the tide when it comes to electing alderman or representatives to a state legislature, even before they begin to influence who is coming to congress. And so i look forward to professor good lows work, which i think will really shed even more light on that question. We should we had her on our series and did not have this question for her. So we will have to do round two. In your understanding, if you look at that question, 1920 to 2020. Are some states better or worse at Voting Rights . Voter suppression. You know, you spoke about Shelby Shelby versus holder and what has been the impact. I know that one of the discussions was when that was coming up was that that was focused on a certain number of states which had historical difficult behavior with regard to Voter Suppression. But weve now gotten to the point where some new states are getting engaged with that. How is that changed over time . So, today i think we would say that any sense of Voter Suppression is a uniquely or distinctly southern problem is no longer the case. We look out across the National Landscape and, when we analyze Voter Suppression, we can see it at work in the american south, but we can also find it if you will alive and well and working in the midwest. And in the context of the coronavirus challenges, i dont think there is a state in the u. S. That isnt going to be touched, were too few states in the u. S. That will be touched by the resulting folder suppression as very late in the game and how we vote. Where we vote. When we vote. It is shifting right under our feet. And so, Voter Suppression today looks to me very much like a national question. And of course, we have to understand that the suppression of votes, for example in the state of georgia, has consequences for all of us, especially in a year in which we are electing a new chief executive. That supression is not only a regret, a lament, a tragedy for voters in georgia, but all of us will live with the consequences of those voters in georgia who might be kept from the polls. I use georgia as an example, but we can go to many other places. Heres the final question. You made a mention of the fact that alice paul sort of turned from ensuring Voter Participation by women to the equal rights amendment, which is still pending today. Do you think that that conversation, the discussion over the equal rights amendment, how will that deal with the full participation of black women in our democracy . So. Its a great question. Im a historian more though than a pungent or a prognosticator. I think the lesson out of 1924 the equal rights amendment is that we have to be aware, own guard, vigilant about the possibility that that womens issues are not so narrowly defined in the wake of an equal rights amendment, that the discrimination, the burdens and more, experienced by women of color experienced in this country get bracketed out in that equation. The story of the road to the 19th amendment is one in which womens issues were so narrowly defined that the problem, the scourge of jim crow for example, was not on suffragists oceanian agendas Suffrage Association agendas even as it affected women. And it was permitted to persist even as the amendment reported to extend equal Voting Rights to African American women. So our work in the wake of an equal rights amendment going forward, if thats where were headed, i think it will be to learn from that lesson and, in my view, the more expansive, intersectional, diverse and inclusive in our definition of what a womans question is. Well, that certainly wraps it up. Doctor jones, thank you for spending this hour with us. Questioning assumptions about history gives us a fresh