discussion
crystallee83
englisharticle.docxAfter reading the article below, please tell me 2 things from each news article that you learned about the efforts by Native American women (and their efforts to get political independence/autonomy back over Native American lands which had implications for crimes against Native American women and other ramifications) and by Black sororities to get the 19th Amendment passed:
n 1920, Native Women Sought the Vote. Here's What's Next.
The 19th Amendment did not bring the right to vote to all Native women, but two experts in a conversation said it did usher in the possibility of change.
The Indigenous suffragist Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, also known as Zitkala-Sa, a citizen of the Yankton Sioux Tribe. After the ratification of the 19th Amendment, she reminded the rejoicing, newly enfranchised white women that the fight was not over.Credit...National Museum of American History
By Cathleen D. Cahill and Sarah Deer
Published July 31, 2020Updated Aug. 19, 2020
Native women were highly visible in early 20th-century suffrage activism. White suffragists, fascinated by Native matriarchal power, invited Native women to speak at conferences, join parades and write for their publications. Native suffragists took advantage of these opportunities to speak about pressing issues in their communities — Native voting, land loss and treaty rights. But their stories have largely been forgotten.
After the 19th Amendment was ratified on Aug. 18, 1920, and celebrated by millions of women across the country, the Indigenous suffragist Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, also known as Zitkala-Sa, a citizen of the Yankton Sioux Tribe, reminded newly enfranchised white women that the fight was far from over. "The Indian woman rejoices with you," she proclaimed to members of Alice Paul's National Woman's Party, but she urged them to remember their Native sisters, many of whom lacked the right to vote. Not only that, she explained, many were not United States citizens, but legally wards of the government, without a political voice to address the many problems facing their communities.
Bonnin and other Native suffragists would continue to remind audiences that federal assimilation policy had attacked their communities and cultures. Despite treaty promises, the U.S. dismantled tribal governments, privatized tribally-held land and removed Native children to boarding schools. Those devastating policies resulted in massive land loss, poverty and poor health that reverberate through these communities today.
Meet the Brave but Overlooked Women of Color Who Fought for the Vote
July 24, 2020
Native suffragists' activism contributed to Congress passing the Snyder Act of 1924, which extended U.S. citizenship to all Native people, though in response many states enacted Jim Crow-like policies aimed at disenfranchising them. The Native suffragists also aided the push for the Wheeler-Howard Act of 1934, which stopped the breakup of tribal lands and emphasized tribal self-governance.
Image
President Calvin Coolidge with a Native delegation, possibly from the Plateau area in the Northwestern United States, near the South Lawn of the White House in 1925, the year after the passage of the Snyder Act.Credit...Library of Congress
As the centennial of the 19th Amendment approaches, it is worth taking up Bonnin's call to remember Native women and their full range of political experiences. With this in mind, Prof. Cathleen D. Cahill, a historian who has written about Native suffragists, joined Prof. Sarah Deer, a scholar of Native law and a citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, to talk about issues Native women face today. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Suffrage at 100
To mark the anniversary of the 19th Amendment, we're revisiting the stories of how women won the right to vote in the United States.
Cathleen D. Cahill:
You have spent much of your career addressing the issue of violence against Native women, including in your book "The Beginning and End of Rape." Native women have been calling attention to this kind of violence for more than a century. Why are Native women especially vulnerable?
Sarah Deer:
I'm a citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation of Oklahoma, and I have been working to address violence against Native women for over 25 years. I started when I was 20 years old as a volunteer advocate for survivors of sexual assault, and that experience inspired me to go to law school. It was in federal Indian law classes that I began to understand the reasons for the high rate of violence. Quite simply, the criminal legal system in Indian Country is broken. What else could explain these statistics: Over 84 percent of Native women have experienced violence in their lifetime, and over 56 percent of Native women have experienced sexual violence. This is data directly from the federal government — and these are probably low estimates. To make matters worse, in 1978 the Supreme Court ruled that tribal nations lack authority to prosecute non-Natives — again, for any crime. Many experts believe this is one of the reasons Native people experience the highest rates of interracial violence in the nation. A system that doesn't hold people accountable sends two messages: to victims, it says "don't bother to report," and to perpetrators, it says "keep victimizing people."
Cahill: That's really awful. In the 1920s Gertrude Simmons Bonnin drew similar connections between violence against Native women and the fact that federal policies had dismantled tribal governments and made Indian people "wards" without any political power. That seems like such a long time ago, but the July 9 Supreme Court ruling in McGirt v. Oklahoma demonstrates that the past is so clearly present in Indian Country. Can you talk about the ruling's ramifications?
Deer: Indian law scholars are calling this the greatest win for tribal governments in the last 50 years. It also hits close to home — it was a victory for my own tribal nation.
Our Nation signed a peace treaty with the United States in 1866 which established specific boundaries for our reservation — about 3 million acres. The United States promised that this reservation would "be forever set apart as a home for said Creek Nation." Seems simple, right?
Throughout the 20th century, though, the state of Oklahoma ignored the treaty and gradually began exercising criminal and civil authority over the reservation, denying its existence.
An 1892 map of the Indian and Oklahoma territories showing the boundaries of tribal reservations. Soon after, the federal government started the process of dividing the tribally-held land despite resistance by tribal leaders. Credit...Library of Congress
The Supreme Court's 5-4 decision, written by Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, determined that the Creek reservation boundaries were never disestablished; the reservation promised to the Creek people in 1866 is still in full force.
Tribal issues don't fare well in the U.S. Supreme Court — losing over 75 percent of the time — so this was an unlikely win, and a tremendous win; the legal reasoning in this decision will have far-reaching implications for many different tribal nations who are attempting to preserve land and resources. Your research has looked into the role of Native women in the American suffrage movement. I'd love to learn more.
Cahill: White feminists were inspired by the matriarchal traditions of Native people. They especially looked to Haudenosaunee (or Iroquois) women's power to appoint male political leadership, control their property, and have custodial rights to their children — those were legal rights white women did not have. They wanted to hear more and often invited Native women to speak at their meetings. This gave Native activists a chance to educate their audiences and while they did proudly talk about their traditions, they also insisted on talking about the problems that faced "the Indian woman of today," as Bonnin put it.
Marie Louise Bottineau Baldwin, a citizen of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, posing with floral pattern beadwork on her wrists and behind her to showcase Native women's artistry. In 1914 she became one of the first Native American women in the U.S. to graduate from law school. Credit...Library of Congress
A good example of this is when organizers asked Marie Louise Bottineau Baldwin, a citizen of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, to put together a float for the 1913 suffrage parade in Washington. They wanted the float to portray Native women as they were in the past, you know, wearing buckskin with their hair in braids, that kind of thing. Baldwin was deeply aware of the power of imagery in shaping public perceptions of Native Americans, so she used her image strategically. She decided not to organize the float, and instead marched with her classmates and teachers from the Washington College of Law. I think she was making a statement that Native women were modern New Women who were looking to the future. She also thought it was important for Native people to study law to protect their land and treaty rights. She was one of the first Native woman to graduate from law school, in 1914. You're also an attorney (and a tribal court justice). What do you think is the role of legal training for Native women in the 21st century?
Deer: Access to legal education is a critical step to strengthening tribal sovereignty. There are still relatively few Native attorneys in the United States, but the numbers are increasing. There are also only a handful of Native women law professors. Nonetheless, Native people are actively litigating important questions of tribal jurisdiction, land rights and criminal authority. Native women serve on tribal courts, but there are also Native women who serve on state benches. Diane Humetewa (Hopi) became the first Native woman appointed to the federal bench in 2014. Some Native attorneys focus their work on legislation like the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) which contains significant provisions that directly affect tribal justice systems. Native women have also been leading the movements to address environmental abuses and pipelines. At Standing Rock Sioux Reservation , in particular, women were doing most of the organizing and decision-making in the fight over the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Rep. Sharice Davids (D-KS), a Ho-Chunk citizen, at a news conference on March 10, 2020.Credit...Pete Marovich for The New York Times
U.S. Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.) of the Laguna Pueblo, at a press conference on June 19, 2019 in Washington, D.C.Credit...Stefani Reynolds/Getty Images
Cahill: One striking thing just in the past few years is the growing number of Native women running for state and federal offices. The first Native women in Congress were just elected in 2018: Deb Haaland of the Laguna Pueblo represents New Mexico and Sharice Davids, a Ho-Chunk citizen, represents your state of Kansas. Native men have served in Congress for well over a century, but they are the first Native women to hold office in Washington. What does it mean to have Native women in Congress or other elected offices?
Deer: Native women have served in state legislatures for many years, but we are now seeing a critical mass of new Native women politicians. Today, we have one Native woman in the Kansas House, and another young Native woman is campaigning for the Kansas House as well. In Minnesota, White Earth citizen Peggy Flanagan, became the first Native women to be elected as a lieutenant governor in the United States in 2018.
When Haaland and Davids were elected as the first two Native women in Congress, it was seen as a tremendous victory for Native people. It seems fitting that there were two women elected together. From my perspective, being the "first" or "only" Native woman serving in Congress could be a lonely experience. A "partnership" of two Native women perhaps makes it easier to achieve great things in Congress. For far too long, Congress has been passing laws to limit the power of tribal governments without any tribal input. It is far past time for us to have a seat at the table.
Cahill: Absolutely. And that is so important to remember when we think about the anniversary of the suffrage amendment. For all suffragists, getting the vote wasn't an end point: It was the possibility for change that voting opened up. Native suffragists saw the vote as a way to change the awful circumstances that faced Native communities at the time. One hundred years later, what's next for Indigenous feminism?
Deer: I'm still basking in the afterglow of the McGirt decision, so I'm optimistic about the future for Native women and tribal nations. I hope to see more Native women elected to public office — at all levels, tribal, state and national. We have been politically and symbolically disenfranchised for too long. I'm so glad our issues are getting more national attention.
Cathleen D. Cahill is an associate professor of history at Penn State University and the author of the forthcoming book "Recasting the Vote: How Women of Color Transformed the Suffrage Movement."
Sarah Deer is a citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and a professor at the University of Kansas.
Battle for the Ballot
The Black sorority that faced racism in the suffrage movement but refused to walk away
By
Aug. 8, 2020
The air was chilly, the trees still bare, yet the sky was clear and bright. March 3, 1913, was shaping up to be a perfect day for a grand and purposeful parade. Thousands of showily dressed suffragists had amassed in Washington from across the nation — indeed the world — to march along Pennsylvania Avenue on the eve of President Woodrow Wilson's inauguration.
A young woman in striking white robes and a golden crown sat astride a white horse at the vanguard of the procession. Row upon row of suffragists followed, gliding by on floats and golden chariots or on foot bearing banners aloft amid the cacophony of marching bands and the buzzing crowd, wrote Rebecca Boggs Roberts in " Suffragists in Washington, D.C.: The 1913 Parade and the Fight for the Vote." Professional women in thematic costumes — including writers stained with ink — marched alongside college women arranged by alma mater.
Women on horseback lead a procession on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington calling for women's suffrage in March 1913. Black suffragists were relegated to the back of the procession. (Bain News Service/Library of Congress)
A spectator observing the vast sea of faces that day might have been excused for thinking that all the marchers were White. Yet a combing of the crowds would have revealed African American women, unlisted in the official program, who had for decades battled racism within the movement to take their rightful place in history.
Among them were the 22 young founders of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. at Howard University debuting as warriors for their race. There was Bertha Pitts Campbell, a vivacious young student who loved to dance but as valedictorian of her Colorado high school knew how to be serious, too. There was her sorority sister, Osceola Adams, a Georgia native with a dramatic flair who drew applause on the university stage. And marching nearby was Vashti Turley Murphy, a stylish graduate of D.C.'s Dunbar High who was pursuing a career as a teacher.
Segregated in the back of the suffrage parade by its White organizers, the Deltas and other African American women were pioneers in paving the way for future Black political activism. More than a century later, African American women's powerful role as political organizers and committed voters is once again in the spotlight as presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden considers naming a Black woman as his running mate.
Yet their presence at the 1913 parade is still not widely known. "We don't yet have the story of women's suffrage in a way that shows Black women's impact and our significance in the movement," said Paula J. Giddings, professor emeritus at Smith College who has written about the role of Black women in American society. "The story is the way it is now because Susan B. Anthony wrote it that way. That's the power of narrative — historians will go back to that story. The next thing we need to think about is how to re-narrate the story."
'A tower of strength'
At the turn of the 20th century — more than 50 years after the first women's rights convention at Seneca Falls — many White women remained opposed to suffrage, fearing a fall from their domestic pedestals. Meanwhile, Black women, with less to lose and so much to gain, were almost uniformly in favor of the vote.
If "White women needed the vote to acquire advantages and protection of their rights," noted Adella Hunt Logan, the leading suffragist of the Black Tuskegee Women's Club, "then Black women needed the vote even more so."
Black women viewed the vote as a means of protecting themselves against sexual exploitation. They also saw it as a way to boost education for African Americans by exerting influence on school boards and state legislatures. And as the great majority of Black women were employed, they believed enfranchisement could help secure their rights in the workforce.
Bertha Pitts Campbell, right, with Osceola Macarthy Adams, was a co-founder of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority at Howard University. The sorority members were told to stay in a segregated section when they joined the march for suffrage in 1913. (Washington State Archives)
Although Black men had been technically able to vote since the 15th Amendment's passage in 1870, they had been effectively disenfranchised, particularly in the South. The passage of the 19th Amendment, Black women reasoned, could re-empower the race, carving away at white supremacy.
When Black women get the vote, "it will find in her a tower of strength of which poets have never sung, orators have never spoken and scholars have never written," wrote Black feminist and civil rights activist Nannie Helen Burroughs in the August 1915 issue of the Crisis, the magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Meanwhile, NAACP co-founder W.E.B. Du Bois praised the moral scrupulousness of Black women, who he believed would never sell their votes as some poor Black laborers had. "You cannot bribe a Negro woman," Du Bois declared.
And yet racism within predominantly White suffrage organizations, including the National American Woman Suffrage Association, prevented the integration of Black women into the movement. White suffragists were loath to elevate Black concerns or feature Black women in their public events, lest they alienate Southern politicians.
So Black women set about organizing themselves. In 1896, two Black women's civil rights groups merged to form the National Association of Colored Women under the leadership of prominent Black women's civil rights activist and suffragist Mary Church Terrell. By the 1900s, Black suffrage clubs had been launched all over the country.
Civil rights activist and suffragist Mary Church Terrell marched alongside the sorority members in the 1913 procession. (Library of Congress)
In 1913, Ida B. Wells-Barnett founded the nonpartisan Alpha Suffrage Club in Illinois, which that year granted women limited voting rights. Wells-Barnett viewed enfranchisement and Black political representation as essential in passing a federal bill against lynching, which had surged since Black men won the vote. Wells-Barnett and other Black suffragists were encouraged in their activism by their White peers in Illinois — but that support had its limits.
As organizing for the March 3 parade got underway, led by 28-year-old Alice Paul, Wells-Barnett was forbidden to march with the all-White Chicago delegation out of fear that her presence would offend Southern women. The fiery crusader, her 60-member strong suffrage club and the other African American activists were consigned to bring up the rear.
Some cheers, many jeers
The 1910s were a heady time at Howard for Campbell and her classmates. Alain Locke, the first Black Rhodes Scholar and chronicler of the Harlem Renaissance, taught young Campbell philosophy. And the famous mathematician and sociologist Kelly Miller underscored her mother's maxim of an "education being a gateway to everything," Campbell told her biographer Pauline S. Hill in "Too Young To Be Old: The Story of Bertha Pitts Campbell."
In 1912, Campbell, Adams and Murphy joined the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority in search of like-minded sisters. But by the end of the year, they and 19 other members had left the AKAs to form their own sorority in pursuit of a high-minded calling: the betterment of their race.
"We wanted to change some ideas," Campbell later recalled to Giddings, author of "In Search of Sisterhood: Delta Sigma Theta and the Challenge of the Black Sorority Movement." "We were more oriented to service than to socialize."
On Jan. 13, 1913, the first chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. opened for business. It didn't take long before its members found an opportunity to prove their mettle.
What better way, the ambitious sisters reasoned, to publicize their purpose than to take part in the national suffrage parade?
Women at Howard University formed the Delta Sigma Theta sorority in 1913 to focus on civic initiatives for African Americans. (Delta Sigma Theta)
They were urged on, according to some reports, by Mary Church Terrell, whose National Association of Colored Women was headquartered in D.C. In truth, the Deltas were also, like most of their peers, "frisky and boy-conscious" according to a history of the Deltas' first 50 years by Mary Elizabeth Vroman, and the prospect of leaving campus was clearly an added draw.
Somehow, the sorority secured the permission of Howard's president, perhaps with Terrell as their champion, as long as the women agreed to be escorted by a male chaperone.
There were rumors that the parade would be met by catcalls and perhaps violence, an even more fearful prospect for the young Black women.
BALLOT BOX
(Library of Congress)
Abolitionists and suffragists were intertwined. The women's rights movement sprang from the abolitionist movement before the Civil War, but the relationship was often uneasy. Some felt women should be able to vote before Black men, or vice versa. Others insisted everyone get the vote simultaneously. And some wanted to bar African Americans from the women's movement, fearing their involvement would turn Southern legislators against the cause.
On the gleaming morning of March 3, 1913, Campbell, a senior, donned her cap and gown and joined the other Delta founders at the rear of the parade.
"Some cheered, however, many jeered and tried to disrupt the marchers by throwing things, spitting on, beating and slapping the women, and trying to pull the women off the floats," Campbell recalled in the biography. And yet the Deltas' arrival to the final rally at Memorial Continental Hall, Terrell by their side, resounded just as they had intended.
The Deltas and other African American marchers who overcame resistance and indignities "are to be congratulated that so many of them had the courage of their convictions," Du Bois wrote in the April 1913 issue of the Crisis.
Some reported that the Deltas broke from their segregated section to mix with the rest of the parade. Barnett-Wells was also seen slipping into line between the White women of the Chicago delegation, thus living up to her motto: "One had better die fighting against injustice than die like a dog or a rat in a trap."
It would take seven more years before the passage of the 19th Amendment, but the course for Black female engagement in politics was set. In 1914, the first Black alderman, Oscar De Priest, was elected in Chicago with the backing of the Alpha Suffrage Club, a harbinger of Black political muscle in the city that has endured to the present. But the battle by African Americans to exercise their voting rights in the face of racism continues to this day, with Black women still at the fore.
The Deltas' participation in the 1913 parade has become a touchstone for the sorority, which now claims 300,000 members, including seven in the halls of Congress. The Deltas run voter registration drives, battle for access to the voting booth, serve as poll workers and train women to run for office, National President Beverly E. Smith said. The organization is gathering its records so they can be included, finally, in the archives of the Library of Congress.
"This is the perfect moment to do it. … It's important for us to make sure the story is told right and that Delta is recognized," Smith said.
As for Campbell and her sorority sisters, Adams adopted the stage name of Osceola Archer and later went on to teach dramatic arts at Bennett College in Greensboro, N.C. Vashti Turley Murphy founded the Baltimore alumnae chapter of Delta Sigma Theta, sat on the board of directors of the city's YWCA and married Carl J. Murphy, publisher of the Afro-American newspapers.
Winona Cargile Alexander, Bertha Pitts Campbell, Zephyr Chisom Carter and Osceola Macarthy Adams are among the co-founders of Delta Sigma Theta sorority. The sorority's participation in the 1913 march heralded future political activism by Black women. (Delta Sigma Theta)
And Campbell herself? She moved to Seattle soon after graduating and became a grass-roots organizer. She co-founded the Christian Friends for Racial Equality, an organization that for decades worked to expand housing and other opportunities for African Americans, and was the first Black member of the board of directors of the YWCA of Seattle-King County.
On a sunny and bright and hot August day in 1981, Campbell led 10,000 Deltas, wearing white and waving banners, on Pennsylvania Avenue to commemorate the early highlight of her life. At 92, she insisted on marching with her sisters.
Illustrations by Bárbara Malagoli for The Washington Post. Editing by Lynda Robinson. Art direction by Amanda Soto. Design and development by Madison Walls. Design editing by Suzette Moyer. Copy editing by Anne Kenderdine. Photo editing and research by Mark Miller.
Sydney Trent has been a journalist at The Washington Post since 1999. Most recently, she was Senior Editor/Social Issues, supervising award-winning coverage of religion, gender, poverty and other topics. In this role, she ran coverage of the 2013 inauguration of Barack Obama and Pope Francis' U.S. papal visit in 2015.
****It is important to also know that despite the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920, Black, Hispanic, Latino, Native American, and Asian American women were prevented from voting in the South through the use of poll taxes and literacy tests, which had been also used to keep poor, illiterate White people from voting until the early 1900s, until beginning in 1965 when the Voting Rights Act was passed which outlawed their usage. These poll taxes and literacy tests were also used against poor, illiterate White people into the early 1900s. Also, the Antis were also worried that if Black women got the right to vote that they would vote for the REPUBLICAN Party, not the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party in the South back then was not the Democratic Party of today. The Republican and the Democratic parties morphed into each other, largely beginning in the 1930s with FDR's transformation of the Democratic Party.
