Today, Dr. Kursman will give us a brief presentation in honor of the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage here in Michigan.  Please join me in welcoming Dr. Nancy Kursman.
Good morning.
First, I want to thank the Wayne County Commission.
I want to thank Commissioner Daub,
I want to thank Dominica Convertino for inviting me today to speak to you all about a really important topic.
As background, you all should know that prior to women obtaining the right to vote, this privilege was reserved for only white, land-owning men.
In the early 1850s, we see the beginning of the women’s rights movement, which was closely allied with the anti-slavery movement.
This group was composed of both men, women, Black and White, and included well-known names
such as Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Mary Ann Shadd Cary, as well as Frederick Douglas, William Lloyd Garrison, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony.
The women’s suffrage movement dates back to a women’s convention, convened at Seneca Falls in New York state.
At the convention, over 300 participants discussed the status of women in the United States and they issued the Declaration of Rights and Sentiments,
which included women’s grievances against men and their demands for equal rights - including the most controversial one: the right to vote.
They almost didn't include that.
The Declaration was modeled on the Declaration of Independence.
It was signed by 68 women and 32 men. It said:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men AND WOMEN are created equal.”
In the 1850s and 1860s, prominent free Black women abolitionists and suffragists spoke and held leadership positions in multiple women’s rights organizations and meetings.
In 1851, Sojourner Truth gave her famous “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech at the National Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio.
In this speech, Truth was referencing how the dual oppression of racism and sexism affected Black women.
This was long before Kimberle Crenshaw wrote her very famous article in 1989 about the intersectionality of race and gender to explain the subjugation of Black women in our society.
Meanwhile, back in Michigan...
In 1855, suffragists from Lenawee County presented petitions to the Michigan Legislature to grant women’s suffrage.
1855.
These petitions were signed by many state citizens,  but the Legislature simply ignored them.
In 1867, the Michigan Legislature granted women taxpayers the right to vote for school trustees,
but rejected total women’s suffrage – and at that time, very few women were individual taxpayers.
Back in Washington, D.C.
In 1869, the 15th Amendment to the US Constitution was proposed, which would enfranchise - allow the vote for - Black men, but not women.
The prioritizing of Black men's suffrage over universal suffrage fractured relationships within the women’s suffrage organizations and split the movement.
Unfortunately, many of the leaders of the women’s rights movement, including Susan B. Anthony, engaged in racist rhetoric opposing the 15th Amendment,
which angered Black suffragists, including long-time allies Frederick Douglas and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper.
Back in Michigan at this time...
In 1881, voting for school board members was extended to parents and guardians of school-age children.
That's 1881.
And in the 1880s, F. Elizabeth Palmer of Albion was the very first woman elected to be a member on a board of education in our state.
In 1889, the Michigan Supreme Court upheld the right of Eva Belles, of Flint, to vote in a school board election after she had been denied that vote in 1888.
This court decision showed that everyone felt that women had a right to have their voice in their community.
Back in Washington...
In 1913, Alice Paul, then the leader of the National Women’s Party, organized a parade down Pennsylvania Avenue, a day before Woodrow Wilson was inaugurated.
Unfortunately, Paul bowed to white racism within the suffrage movement.
She asked Ida Wells Barnett, a prominent African-American woman suffragist and anti-lynching activist, to march at the rear of the parade, instead of with her white Chicago delegation.
Wells refused to march in the rear, and instead joined the line between two white women and marched with them.
National Association of Colored Women founder and suffragist, Mary Church Terrell, marched in the rear with the all-Black delegation, but she denounced Paul and her anti-Black stance.
The parade started out well, with floats, women and girls dressed in white, proudly displaying their banners and hopes for women’s rights.
However, angry male onlookers attacked the women, and the parade ended with injuries and front-page news coverage.
In 1917, during World War I,  suffragists stood silently with signs outside the White House asking Woodrow Wilson to endorse women’s suffrage.
Thirty three suffragists were arrested, including Betsy Graves Reyneau of Detroit, and Alice Paul.
All were sentenced to 60 days hard labor in prison. Paul was put in solitary confinement for two weeks with nothing to eat but bread and water.
On the night of November 14, 1917, known as the "Night of Terror", the superintendent of the Occoquan Workhouse, W.H. Whittaker, ordered the nearly forty guards to brutalize the suffragists.
They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head, then left her there for the night.
Their conditions were horrible: insects infested their food and water.
Alice Paul began a hunger strike. The prison doctors ordered painful force-feeding by inserting a tube down her throat.
Newspapers found out how the women were being treated. This angered the public and increased the support for women’s suffrage.
Finally, on November 27th and 28th, all the protesters were released.
Meanwhile, back in Michigan, after the fourth try,
In 1918, Michigan male voters approved a state constitutional amendment granting suffrage to Michigan women.
Opponents were worried that women voters would enter the workplace, leaving men at home with domestic chores. They didn't have to worry about that too much.
But with the war on, many women were already in the workforce.
The 19th Amendment to the US Constitution, granting women the right to vote, passed Congress on June 4, 1919.
Michigan did not lag to ratify the Amendment, and was the second state to ratify it on June 10, 1919 - only six days later.
On August 26, 1920, the Secretary of State certified the ratification of the 19th Amendment, and it formally became part of our Constitution.
The next year, in 1921, Eva McCall Hamilton, of Grand Rapids, became the very first woman elected to serve in the Michigan Legislature as a member of the Michigan Senate.
Although the battle for suffrage ended for White women in 1919, Black women and men were disenfranchised in the Jim Crow South until passage in 1965 of the Voting Rights Act.
The Voting Rights Act,  which has been called one of the most important civil rights laws in our history,
ended discriminatory practices, such as literacy tests,
and provided for federal oversight in all areas in which less than 50% of the non-White population had not been registered to vote.
This law was instrumental in increasing the number of Black men and women registering, voting, and running for office.
Fifty-five years after White women received the right to vote, universal suffrage was finally obtained.
The truth is that suffragists, both black and white, men and women, were not handed the vote – they had to fight for it.
Sadly, there is a racist backstory to this part of our history.
Many Michigan men and women were part of the fight for universal suffrage, and it is on their shoulders that we stand today.
Thank you.
