Vanguard, how black women overcame barriers vanguard how black women broke 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 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, People 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 and writing of eric fawn are and followed his career, linked history and scholarship and social justice. And she discovered what she called her inner archive, which he 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 officer at john hopkins university. There, since then she has won too many awards to mention. Lets just say shes a close call. Or in 20, 19 her alma mater, awarded her a doctor of law on a honourary basis. And each spring, she and her husband who is front 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 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 move from if you will mid to history. 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 in the 19 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. Though i cant bring the 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 any many parts of the country to be disenfranchised. That fact of the 19th amendment alone means that it fits properly with events 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 University Tests 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. Voter rates and voting suppression went hand in hand in 1920. Fortunately, im a historian. That means that nothing in my job recourse me to plant 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 michelle, look back at the celebrations that marked 500 years into 1992. 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. Historians away from such occasions, 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 understanding of how the colonial people affected the people on the lands of the hemisphere. Why i stayed home from the celebrations i know the centennial of the amendment marks a milestone of the american Voting Rights. I add that remembering the era of Voter Suppression may help us to see more clearly how ballots are being withheld from americans in our own time and encourage us to commit to the ongoing war of ensuring Voting Rights of all americans. Im eager to contribute stories of black women to understanding of the 19th amendment as a nation were not quite ready yet for that grants elaboration. The promise of Voting Rights for all still remains on the horizon. So it happened on august 20 when the 19th amendment became part of the constitution . Im get folks today on two mets that i think still pervade interpretations of that scene. And the first is that when the amendment became law all american women among the, vote and you have probably even heard it said that in 1920, the women were now guaranteed the right to vote. Thats one myth. The second is that on the contrary, and its a myth that almost runs contrary to the. First theres the myth that no black american women gained a vote 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 ear, i want to start by looking at august of that in 20, 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 kept of sex. So whats 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. Still, the 19th amendment didnt promise any american women the vote. Some laws. State laws still kept women from the polls, based upon age, citizenship, residency, mental competence, american women who married not u. S. Citizens in 1920 still faced de naturalization, and now the loss of their voting rates. 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 votes that existed even after the federal amendment, it was racism. Its true that the 15th amendment in 1870, 15 years before had expressly forbid states from denying the vote because of race. But by 19, 20 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. Taxes, had effectively kept many black men from casting their ballots since the 18 nineties, unchecked intimidation and the threat of lynching sealed the deal. Local voting officials had effectively obstructed a color line without expressly quoting race. Did america win the vote in 1920 . We have to say not all women. African american women into many states be key merely if you will equals to their husbands and their fathers, state laws disenfranchised them and the spirit of the 15th 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, delaware. Reports were that black women turned out in unusually large numbers in the judgment of the journalist, but officials refused them because they failed to comply with the constitutional tests. What was going on in delaware in many places . Black women were being presented with text of the u. S. Constitution, being 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 the reluctant official, to explain for example the electoral college. It is not easy to do and many black women do not succeed in overcoming these kinds of hurdles and 1920. And still, black women were voting. The first waves of black women voters were unleashed in individual states that had made womens a law. In california starting in 1911. In illinois in 1913. In new york in 1917. Black women were already experienced voters by 1920. Even more managed to register and cast ballots in the fall of that year in the wake of the 19th amendment. How did they do that . One example from st. Louis, missouri, where black women came together under the auspices of the tillis weekly branch of the wide wcs a, name for the 18th century poet. There, they ran a Suffrage School and taught one another to pay pull taxes, how do you pass literacy tests, how to grapple with begrudging officials. They even managed to attract men to the Suffrage School who thought that, perhaps, 1920 represented a moment in which they might reclaim the Voting Rights that they had lost decades before. Black women turned out in st. Louis and the papers reported that eerily, every woman in the city registered that season. Black women came to represent. Somewhere between ten and 20 of new voters. And the stakes were high in st. Louis. A city where local officials were using referendums to impose housing segregation, for the first time by law and the city of st. Louis. Black women arent turning out not only to realize their own personal ambitions, not only to further womens interests, but to contribute to the struggle against gym crow, which now had a decisive sort of consequence in the ballot box in a city like st. Louis. The other example i will offer this afternoon comes from daytona, florida. There, suffragists, club leader and educator marry within head run a very effective Voter Registration effort in 1919 and 1920 throughout the state of florida to get black women registered win the 19th amendment took effect. Bethune, who ran a school in daytona for African American girls, learned that the wave of violence and intimidation that head over taken the state of florida by the fall of 2020 whos going to visit her very close to home. The ku klux klan announced that it would gather on election eve in 1920 in daytona. Indeed, they appeared on mass on horseback in full regalia. They burn a cross and then marched to the grounds of bethunes girl school, todays bethune university, in an attempt to intimidate bethune, her faculty and the African American women in daytona who had been part of the voter drive there. The next day, black women did turn out and we learned something about the extent of their organization and their tactics because they turn out to gather in large numbers at the polls. This is understood to be a tactic that will, if not repel, discourage the sort of violence that clan members had threatened the night before. So, bethune and her patriots have a kind of success in the fall of 1920. But the violence in florida persists. It persists to such a degree that the clan again will visit misses Bethune School on election eve in 1922. And by that fall, black americans in florida will regretfully concede that unchecked violence and intimidation, unchecked by the 15th and 19th amendments, has kept them importantly away from the polls. So what are black women to do in the fall of 1920 as they look out across the terrain of the nation . As well as taken the incompleteness of the 19th amendment, the patchwork that is Voting Rights for black women, even after a federal amendment. In 1920, the president of the National Association of colored women, the largest Political Organization to represent black women in that year, more than 300,000 members across the country. She had been a club leader who led the nac w. Suffrage department during the years along the road to the 19th amendment in the fall of 1920. Highly queen brown is charged with leading black women through a new political challenge. What comes after an amendment to the constitution, the nac w. Resolves that what is demanded, what is required now is federal legislation that would give teeth to the terms of both the 15th and 19th amendment. They would combat and undo the state laws that were continuing to keep black women from the polls. This is the objective that Hallie Quinn Brown and the women of the would chart for themselves and i had to try to way forward. Hallie quinn brown is, i think its fair to say, and appreciate or of the capacities of Leaders Within organizations like the National Association the American National womens suffrage association. The National Womens party who had led the campaign for ratification of the 19th amendment. Quinn brown go so far as to call on alice paul. She wants to be a part of the celebrations that alice paul is planning and that will mark the ratification of the 19th amendment. She wants black women to be there. As importantly, she wants to make a proposal to alice paul. One that would lead to a linkage between black and white womens organizations and would work toward the federal legislation that Hallie Quinn Brown and the women of the nacw are after. Hallie quinn brown and a delegation of black women will call on alice paul in the winter of 1921 during what turns out to be the last meeting of the National Womens party. She will ask paul for just that in a Political Alliance that will continue the struggle for womens votes, it will work towards womens universal votes, through the winning a federal legislation. What we know, of course, is that alice paul will decline. She will fold up the business of the National Womens party, and importantly, move on by 1923 to call for an equal rights amendment to the constitution cause that is still live and the 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 way for womens Voting Rights, one that they will partner with African American men. Its a movement that will continue to on one hand work the ground game of womens politics. Perhaps best exemplified by the work of African American women in the city of chicago. Who will not only become important in the public and party opportunists. But will use their power at the ballots to see to it that for the First Time Since 1901, and 1928, the African American candidate would be elected to congress and head to washington. Black women learned 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 we just importantly by the naacp. That campaign that will bring aid and to pull taxes. Two rights in the primaries. To grandfather clauses. This effort both lobbying and litigation on the part of naacp 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 dangerous work that we associate with women. And allow 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 African Americans across the south, it is that campaign that will force the end ultimately of hand of congress and 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 highly bray own and those associated with the National Association of colored women that. And still, women dont have the qualified right to vote even in 2020. The Voter Suppression tactics that kept women from the polls in 1920, and yet we recognize the way in which voter i. D. Was shuttered polling places. Is act match requirements. The purging of voter rolls continue to provide deprive american women of the vote, including women of color. The policies of officials, which do not care take the right to vote are still with us as we watch officials missed the mark and ensuring that all of us