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 NationalSuffrage 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 wo