It was the culmInatIon of genera-
tions of activism, and Carrie Chapman
Catt, who had devoted three decades
to the suffrage struggle, was among the
crowds that celebrated the ratification of
the 19th Amendment in 1920. “Women
have suffered agony of soul which you
never can comprehend, that you and
your daughters might inherit political
freedom,” Catt told a victorious throng.
“Prize it!”
Among those agonies was an ongoing
debate about how women should go about
securing those rights—and the ongoing
disenfranchisement of women of color.
Catt opted for pragmatism and poli-
tics, lobbying on a state level and in the
halls of Congress. Along the way, she
tussled with Alice Paul and Lucy Burns,
militant suffragists who preferred a
more dramatic approach. Paul and Burns
organized public parades and staged a
groundbreaking, yearslong White House
picket with banners that implored Presi-
dent Woodrow Wilson to act. The “Silent
Sentinels” endured arrests and imprison-
ment in a squalid workhouse where they
were brutalized and force-fed. Which ap-
proach was more effective? “Every move-
ment for social change needs both,” says
suffrage historian Johanna Neuman.
For women of color, though, the
1920 victory did not guarantee voting
rights. Despite their fervent participa-
tion in the suffrage struggle, their voting
rights were secured only with the 1965
Voting Rights Act.
Native Americans like Zitkala-Sa, a
member of the Yankton Dakota Sioux,
were not considered U.S. citizens and
were not qualified to vote. “Americanize
the first American!” she urged in 1921.
Even after the Indian Citizenship Act
she had lobbied for became law in 1924,
it did not guarantee the vote. Zitkala-Sa
agitated for full voting rights for the rest
of her life. Only in 1962, decades after
her death, did Native Americans gain the
right to vote from every state legislature.
The 19th Amendment was also bit-
tersweet to black suffragist Ida B. Wells-
Barnett. “With no sacredness of the bal-
lot there can be no sacredness of human
life itself,” she wrote in 1910, tying
women’s right to vote to Jim Crow dis-
enfranchisement of black men. De-
spite her contributions to the move-
ment, Wells-Barnett was snubbed by
white activists. At a 1913 suffrage pa-
rade, she was told to march in the rear.
She rebelled, claiming a spot alongside
white participants instead.
“This part of the suffrage story is a
tragic one,” says Wells-Barnett biographer
Paula Giddings. “It’s time to re-examine
the movement and its flaws so we won’t
repeat them again.”Blakemore is a journalist and the author
of The Heroine’s Bookshelf1920 | VOTES FOR WOMEN
THE SUFFRAGISTS
BY ERIN BLAKEMORE
SUFFRAGISTS PROTEST AT THE
REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION
IN CHICAGO IN JUNE 1920CARRIE ALICE PAUL
CHAPMAN CATTLUCY BURNS IDA B.
WELLS-BARNETTZITKALA-SA1920sBURNS: PHOTOQUEST/GETTY IMAGES; CATT: CINCINNATI MUSEUM CENTER/GETTY IMAGES; PAUL: HARRIS & EWING/FPG/ARCHIVE PHOTOS/GETTY IMAGES; WELLS-BARNETT: GETTY IMAGES; ZITKALA-SA: GRANGER; SUFFRAGISTS: EVERETT/ALAMY; NO