Fri 4/16 @ 12:30PM
As we watch the blatantly anti-patriotic and un-American efforts of legislators in many states to roll back voting rights based on false claims of “voter fraud,” our pushback should be motivated by the long, tough fight to universal suffrage in the U.S.
When our country was founded, as many of us know (and all should know), only white, property-owning men were allowed to vote. Gradually that has expanded. And while 2020 was a year of celebrating the 100th anniversary of the 19thAmendment, which gave women the right to vote, in reality, it was decades after that when Black people, especially in the south, were actually able to cast a ballot without risking their lives. Now Black women are among the most avid voters and the most politically active demographic pushing back against voter suppression efforts.
The City Club of Cleveland is presenting a forum (still virtual) called “Missing from History: Black Suffragists and the Right to Vote.” The speaker is Paula J Giddings, Professor Emerita of Africana Studies at Smith College, who has studied and written extensively about Black women in America.
They remind us that “Women and men of all races, ethnicities, and identities fought for — and against — women’s right to vote. The national movement that led to the women’s right to vote is not only a story about women’s rights, but is also an American story of race, class, citizenship, gender, immigration, political identity, and values.”
Giddings will talk about the role played by Black women in the 19th Amendment and how their activism has influenced politics to this day. The forum, moderate by the City Club’s Dan Moultrop, is free to tune into. Go here.
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