Woman Suffrage

MODERNIZING AMERICA, 1889-1920 Woman Sufrage

Resource:

Black Sufragists

Document Text Summary

COLORED WOMEN AS VOTERS By Adella Hunt Logan More and more colored women are studying public questions and civics. As they gain information and have More and more Black women want the experience in their daily vocations and vote. in their eforts for human betterment they are convinced, as many other women have long ago been convinced, that their eforts would be more telling if women had the vote.

The fashion of saying “I do not care to meddle with politics” is disappearing Black women appreciate that their lives among the colored woman faster than intersect with politics and that they most people think, for this same woman should care about the vote. has learned that politics meddle constantly with her and hers.

Good women try always to do good housekeeping. Building inspectors, sanitary inspectors and food inspectors If women are in charge of the home, owe their positions to politics. Who then they should have a say in the people is so well informed as to how these and organizations that inspect and inspectors perform their duties as the monitor homes. women who live in inspected districts and in inspected houses, and who buy food from inspected markets?

Adequate schools facilities in city, village, and plantation districts greatly Black mothers are concerned about concern the black mother. But without a education and need the vote to ensure vote she has no voice in educational their children receive the good legislation, and no power to see that her education they deserve. children secure their share of public- school funds.

Negro parents admit that their own children are not all angels, but they know that the environments which they Black parents cannot improve the are helpless to regulate increase juvenile justice system without the vote. misdemeanor and crime. They know, too, that ofcers, as a rule, recognize few obligations to voteless citizens.

When colored juvenile delinquents are When young Black people appear in arraigned, few judges or juries feel juvenile court, judges and juries treat bound to give them the clemency due a them like members of an inferior class. neglected class.

When sentence is pronounced on these mischievous youngsters, too often they Too often, young Black people are are imprisoned with adult criminals and imprisoned with adults. come out hardened and not helped by their punishment.

When colored mothers ask for a reform school for a long time they receive no Black mothers want to reform schools answer. They must wait while they and the juvenile justice system. Without besiege their legislature. Having no vote the vote, legislators don’t have to listen they need not be feared or heeded. The to these women. “right of petition” is good; but it is much better when well voted in.

Not only is the colored woman awake to reforms that may be hastened by good In states where women already have legislation and wise administration, but the vote, Black women are using it to where she has the ballot she is reported make change. as using it for the uplift of society and for the advancement of the State.

In California the colored woman bore her part creditably in the campaign for Black women in California fought for the equal sufrage and also with vote and are now voting. commendable patriotism in the recent presidential nomination campaign.

The State of Washington, new with its votes-for-women law, has already had a A Black woman in Washington sat on a colored woman juror. Why not? She is jury. educated and wealthy and wants to protect the best interests in her State.

Colorado has never had better school ofcers than her women have made. Judge Ben. Lindsey is as popular with colored women voters as he is with Black mothers in Colorado support a white women voters. The juvenile court juvenile court judge who treats Black over which he presides gives the boy a boys fairly. square deal regardless of color. A majority of mothers and fathers can be counted on every time to support such an ofcial.

Wyoming, Utah and Idaho, the other full sufrage States, have few colored Black women in Wyoming, Utah, and women, but these few are not hurt by, Idaho are also voting. but helped by, their voting privileges.

In the States that are now conducting woman sufrage campaigns the colored Black women are actively involved in woman is as interested and probably as the fght for the vote in Ohio, Kansas, active as conditions warrant. This is and other states. notably true of Ohio and Kansas.

A number of colored women are active members of the National Woman Sufrage Association. They are all well informed and are diligent in the spread of propaganda. Women who see that they need the vote see also that the Black women are fghting for the vote vote needs them. Colored women feel and know that it will help them improve keenly that they may help in civic the lives of all Black citizens. betterment, and that their broadened interests in matters of good government may arouse the colored brother, who for various reasons has become too indiferent to his duties of citizenship.

The sufrage map shows that six States have equal political rights for women and men, and that a much larger Wherever women have the vote, Black number have granted partial sufrage to women are voting and working to make women. In all these the colored woman change. More Black women will vote as is taking part, not as fully as she will the idea of women voting becomes when the question is less of an more acceptable and opportunities for experiment, not as heartily as she will Black women expand. when her horizon broadens, but she bears her part.

This much, however, is true now: the colored American believes in equal justice to all, regardless of race, color, Black Americans believe in equal justice creed or sex, and longs for the day for all and look forward to a day when when the United States shall indeed they will experience that equality. have a government of the people, for the people and by the people—even including the colored people.

“Colored Women as Voters.” The Crisis, September 1912. The Modernist Journals

Project: Brown University and the University of Tulsa.