Speaker 1: Hey fam, Hello Sunshine. Today on the bright Side, it's
Speaker 1: election Day, as we celebrate the power of making our
Speaker 1: voices heard. We're joined by a claimed historian, doctor Martha S. Jones,
Speaker 1: to discuss the brave, courageous women who fought to make
Speaker 1: the Nineteenth Amendment a reality and to honor the unsung
Speaker 1: heroes who have carried that torch into present day. It's Tuesday,
Speaker 1: November fifth. I'm Danielle Robe.
Speaker 2: And I'm Simone Boyce and this is the bright Side
Speaker 2: from Hello Sunshine, a daily show where we come together
Speaker 2: to share women's stories, laugh, learn and brighten your day.
Speaker 3: Danielle.
Speaker 2: From day one of our show, we knew that there
Speaker 2: were a lot of things that we wanted to do right.
Speaker 2: We wanted to talk about wellness, We wanted to have
Speaker 2: interviews with inspiring authors, women who have made powerful pivots.
Speaker 2: But there was one area where we said we would
Speaker 2: never go. We wanted this to be a politics free zone.
Speaker 2: But forgive us if we break our own rules for today,
Speaker 2: because today is of course election Day, a reminder that
Speaker 2: we have the power to change the narrative.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we were going to be the Dolly Parton of podcasts,
Speaker 1: but we are breaking our rules today. And you know what,
Speaker 1: in the spirit of that, I'm going to share my
Speaker 1: favorite quote because you and I when we started this,
Speaker 1: we actually bonded over talking about how we both were patriots. Yes,
Speaker 1: and I think this is a really patriotic quote that
Speaker 1: I actually post this a lot on July fourth on
Speaker 1: Memorial Day sometimes, and it's a quote from President Bill Clinton.
Speaker 1: He said, what is right with America can fix what
Speaker 1: is wrong with America. And I think it reflects this
Speaker 1: optimistic belief in the strength and values of the American
Speaker 1: people to address and overcome any challenge.
Speaker 2: And one voter block in particular that has identified those
Speaker 2: challenges and has vowed to overcome them is women. Women
Speaker 2: and our collective turnout will decide this election. Historically, that
Speaker 2: wasn't always the case.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until June nineteen nineteen that Congress passed the
Speaker 1: nineteenth Amendment, ensuring that no one could be denied the
Speaker 1: right to vote on the basis of sex. But even
Speaker 1: then it took until August nineteen twenty for it to
Speaker 1: become part of the constitution. That fall, twenty six million
Speaker 1: women had the opportunity to vote for the very first
Speaker 1: time a monumental step forward that paved the way for
Speaker 1: generations to come.
Speaker 2: Today, we're honoring the women who fought for our right
Speaker 2: to vote, many of whom never made it into the
Speaker 2: glossy pages of our history books.
Speaker 1: Here to help us learn about the history of the
Speaker 1: nineteenth Amendment and how the suffrage movement has continued up
Speaker 1: to our present day is Professor of History at Johns
Speaker 1: Hopkins University, Martha S.
Speaker 3: Jones.
Speaker 1: She's the Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor and Director
Speaker 1: of Graduate Studies.
Speaker 3: She's also the.
Speaker 1: Author of Vanguard, How Black women broke barriers, won the
Speaker 1: vote and insisted on equality for all.
Speaker 2: Doctor Martha S. Jones, Welcome to the bright Side.
Speaker 3: I'm very happy to be here. Thanks well.
Speaker 2: This is a very historic day, perfect for a historic conversation.
Speaker 2: I'm so excited to walk through the history of the
Speaker 2: suffragist movement with you. And as we talk about the
Speaker 2: significance of the passing of the nineteenth Amendment, can you
Speaker 2: paint a picture for us of the social and political
Speaker 2: landscape in the US in nineteen twenty What were the
Speaker 2: conditions that led to the onset of the suffragist movement?
Speaker 3: The onset of the suffragist movement in some ways is
Speaker 3: a very long story. But by the time we get
Speaker 3: to nineteen twenty, American women are really building on many, many,
Speaker 3: many decades of activism, which is to say there is
Speaker 3: no blank slate. But by the time we get to
Speaker 3: nineteen twenty, the suffragist movement as we sometimes think of it,
Speaker 3: is well established on the American political landscape. It is
Speaker 3: characterized by radical and mainstream factions. It had as insiders
Speaker 3: mostly elite white women, and outsiders women of color. It
Speaker 3: has allies in many quarters in American politics. As it
Speaker 3: becomes clear that American women can emerge for political parties
Speaker 3: as an important element of their constituencies. So by nineteen twenty,
Speaker 3: American women have made the case for their political competency
Speaker 3: and the effectiveness of their votes. It's important to remember
Speaker 3: that by nineteen twenty, women are already voting in many
Speaker 3: individual states. In California since nineteen eleven, in Illinois since
Speaker 3: nineteen thirteen, in New York since nineteen seventeen, so many
Speaker 3: major states already have experience with the power of women voters,
Speaker 3: even before we get to the nineteenth Amendment.
Speaker 2: And what were the issues that these women wanted to
Speaker 2: vote on vote for everyone goes to the ballot box
Speaker 2: for different reasons. Our civic duty, of course, but we
Speaker 2: all have different priorities and needs and issues and spaces
Speaker 2: in our culture where we want our voices heard.
Speaker 3: What did they want? Well, there isn't one thing, and
Speaker 3: that's part of the story. One of the things that
Speaker 3: we hear from the opponents of women's suffrage in the
Speaker 3: run up to the nineteenth Amendment is that women don't
Speaker 3: need the vote because they're simply going to vote like
Speaker 3: their husbands, their fathers, like their brothers. In other words,
Speaker 3: they are sort of redundant in the body politic and
Speaker 3: to some degree that turns out to be true. But
Speaker 3: it is also the case that, for example, among African
Speaker 3: American women, the vote is an opportunity not only to
Speaker 3: realize their full potential as citizens, but also to use
Speaker 3: their force as Black Americans in a time during which
Speaker 3: what's happening at the ballot box in many places are
Speaker 3: initiatives that are furthering and setting in place Jim Crow
Speaker 3: or segregation. Many American women come to the polls because
Speaker 3: it is the actualization of their full citizenship. Even if
Speaker 3: they vote like their fathers and their husbands. But for
Speaker 3: some women, particularly Black women, there are very specific concerns,
Speaker 3: and those concerns are Jim Crow segregation, racism, and Black
Speaker 3: women believe that the ballot box is one place at
Speaker 3: which they can combat that.
Speaker 1: Why was there such opposition to women voting before the
Speaker 1: passage of the nineteenth Amendment? What were the counter arguments
Speaker 1: from people at the time.
Speaker 3: If we go back, there are some very fundamental arguments
Speaker 3: that are made about women's literal, physical, and intellectual capacities.
Speaker 3: Politics is perhaps somewhat rightly perceived to be a rough
Speaker 3: and dirty game, and there are opponents of women's suffrage
Speaker 3: who simply say women are not up to the challenges
Speaker 3: and to the fight that is American politics. A more
Speaker 3: paternalistic view that is used to oppose women's suffrage says
Speaker 3: women should be protected from the violence of American politics
Speaker 3: and more. There are certainly those who importantly argue that
Speaker 3: to empower women politically, to bring them into politics, is
Speaker 3: to disrupt family life, to distract women, to pull women
Speaker 3: away from their what are said to be their primary
Speaker 3: obligations as homemakers and mothers. Of course, these are middle
Speaker 3: class women, but as the Nineteenth Amendment campaign game steam.
Speaker 3: There is a real important distinction that comes to be drawn,
Speaker 3: and it is one linked to the history of segregation,
Speaker 3: the worry that if African American win the vote, they
Speaker 3: will vote with black men and begin to move the
Speaker 3: needle on election day in a challenge to Jim Crow segregation.
Speaker 3: If we look back at the debates in Congress that
Speaker 3: lead to the putting forward of the Nineteenth Amendment, if
Speaker 3: we look at the debates in the individual states, thirty
Speaker 3: six of them that ratify the Nineteenth Amendment over time,
Speaker 3: if we look at the arguments that are made by
Speaker 3: proponents of women's suffrage, everyone in the nineteeneens is speaking
Speaker 3: openly about the necessity that whatever Congress might do, however
Speaker 3: the Constitution might be amended, it is essential that this
Speaker 3: change not empower Black women at the polls.
Speaker 2: So the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified on August eighteenth, nineteen twelve.
Speaker 2: But there were some key moments that happened leading up
Speaker 2: to that data and I want to ask you about
Speaker 2: one of those. The Seneca Falls Convention, happened in the
Speaker 2: mid eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 3: What changed there eighteen forty eight is a moment in
Speaker 3: Seneca Falls, New York. For anyone who knows Seneca Falls
Speaker 3: even today, it's a small village in rural upstate New York,
Speaker 3: but it is home to some very radical thinking women
Speaker 3: who locally are coming together. They hold a convention, they
Speaker 3: issue a statement of principles that include many things, including
Speaker 3: the demand that women should vote. One of the important
Speaker 3: things to say about Seneca Falls is that though there
Speaker 3: are local African American women living in Seneca Falls, active
Speaker 3: in Seneca Falls and its civic life, as best we know,
Speaker 3: there are no African American women at Seneca Falls. Where
Speaker 3: are Black women? Well, in eighteen forty eight, the year
Speaker 3: of the Seneca Falls Convention, African American women are in
Speaker 3: Philadelphia organizing there to challenge their premier institution, or one
Speaker 3: of them, which is the African Methodist Episcopal Church. And
Speaker 3: so black women are not organizing around a declaration of
Speaker 3: sentiments in upstate New York. They are organizing in Philadelphia
Speaker 3: and are demanding equal rights in church bodies. For example,
Speaker 3: they want licenses to preach, they want to control over
Speaker 3: the interpretation of the Bible. And so these are two
Speaker 3: scenes that are I think coming very much out of
Speaker 3: the same criticism right the ways in which what we
Speaker 3: call today sexism is keeping American women marginalized. But black
Speaker 3: and white women are active in very different spheres in
Speaker 3: some of those early scenes.
Speaker 1: So another cultural moment for this movement occurred during the
Speaker 1: First Great War. How did World War One shift momentum
Speaker 1: in favor of women's suffrage.
Speaker 3: American women become a part of the work of war
Speaker 3: or the war effort. So we see many more American
Speaker 3: women who had not typically or traditionally worked outside the
Speaker 3: home being drawn into the war effort itself. At the
Speaker 3: same time, the White House, which by the end of
Speaker 3: the war is headed by Woodrow Wilson, is vulnerable to
Speaker 3: political criticism, is deeply invested in a united home front
Speaker 3: related to the war, and so the criticisms and the
Speaker 3: challenges of suffrages are heard differently during the war because
Speaker 3: there is this deep desire to hold on to a
Speaker 3: national front that is united, that is not troubled by
Speaker 3: domestic questions, and the debate over the night what becomes
Speaker 3: the Nineteenth Amendment will resume and have to find new
Speaker 3: traction after the war, and so it isn't quite the
Speaker 3: turning point that it might have been or that suffragists
Speaker 3: might have hoped it would be.
Speaker 2: After the break. More on the history of the Nineteenth
Speaker 2: Amendment with professor and doctor Martha S. Jones. The nineteenth
Speaker 2: Amendment was a watershed moment in history, but it did
Speaker 2: not include all women. And you've written about this and
Speaker 2: spoken about this extensively. In one article I'm thinking of
Speaker 2: in Politico, you wrote that there were two point two
Speaker 2: million Black women living in the South who are kept
Speaker 2: off the registration books because of existing Jim Crow laws.
Speaker 2: And you also wrote that August nineteen twenty was really
Speaker 2: the start of a new fight, new political fight for
Speaker 2: so many Black women.
Speaker 3: What happened next African American women in the fall of
Speaker 3: nineteen twenty, not unlike millions of other American women, organize,
Speaker 3: prepare themselves, and attempt to register to vote. And in
Speaker 3: many places, literacy tests, grandfather clauses, poll taxes, intimidation and
Speaker 3: violence prevent them from registering, prevent them from casting their ballots.
Speaker 3: And that means later that fall, when they look out
Speaker 3: across the political landscape of the nation, it's patchwork. Black
Speaker 3: women are voting. He's like Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York,
Speaker 3: but in too many places, particularly in the American South
Speaker 3: and to some degree in the American West, they are
Speaker 3: unable to cast ballots, and the question is what to do.
Speaker 3: They have in hand a nineteenth Amendment, but they recognize
Speaker 3: that these laws, state laws are doing an end run
Speaker 3: around the Nineteenth Amendment and keeping them. Just as those
Speaker 3: same laws have kept their fathers and their sons and
Speaker 3: their husbands from voting, now they are blocked at the polls.
Speaker 3: Some of the responsibility for this falls to a character
Speaker 3: someone I really admire, Halle Quinn Brown. And Halle Quinn
Speaker 3: Brown is an educator, a suffragist, and in nineteen twenty
Speaker 3: she is president of the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs,
Speaker 3: which is the big umbrella organization that oversees Black women's
Speaker 3: struggles for the vote in this period. And Halle Quinn
Speaker 3: Brown determines that the way forward is now to lobby
Speaker 3: to win federal legislation, that if Congress can pass laws
Speaker 3: that give teeth to the Nineteenth Amendment, they can override
Speaker 3: the state laws that are keeping Black women from the polls.
Speaker 3: In every election cycle. Despite how they are discouraged, black
Speaker 3: women are attempting to register. When they can register, they
Speaker 3: are casting ballots. They are becoming members, active members of
Speaker 3: the Republican Party, raising money, helping to set the agenda
Speaker 3: and the party platform, supporting candidates. The best example comes
Speaker 3: from Chicago, where by nineteen twenty eight, black women send
Speaker 3: an African American candidate to Congress, Oscar de Priest, and
Speaker 3: they do that by voting as a block in Chicago.
Speaker 3: He's the first black man to go to Congress since
Speaker 3: the advent of Jim Crow. It's a huge sign of
Speaker 3: the ways in which black women can in fact move
Speaker 3: the needle, just like people fear they will on election day.
Speaker 3: But the last piece, of course, I think is the
Speaker 3: piece of the story maybe we know the best, and
Speaker 3: that is, by the nineteen forties the surfacing of what
Speaker 3: becomes the modern civil rights revolution. Black women, we know,
Speaker 3: will be the foot soldiers of that revolution. They will
Speaker 3: be the architects and the masterminds. They will be the organizers,
Speaker 3: using largely nonviolent direct action in a series of campaigns,
Speaker 3: much of it culminating in Selma, Alabama, holding the feet
Speaker 3: of the nation to the fire of voting rights. But
Speaker 3: only forty five years after nineteen twenty will they succeed
Speaker 3: in winning what is in that year, the Voting Rights Act.
Speaker 3: That is really the culmination of the struggle for women's
Speaker 3: votes for African American women.
Speaker 2: I know that we touched on some of these women,
Speaker 2: but would you tell us about some of the most
Speaker 2: fearsome Black female suffragist advocates.
Speaker 3: Yes, I want to hold up and introduce Mary MacLeod Bethune.
Speaker 3: Missus Bethune is born in Florida in eighteen seventy five.
Speaker 3: She is the child of former slaves, the baby in
Speaker 3: a large family, and because she's born after the Civil War,
Speaker 3: because she's born during reconstruction, she is sent away to
Speaker 3: school and she can be educated. She begins her public
Speaker 3: life as a teacher and migrates to Daytona, Florida, where
Speaker 3: she opens a school for African American girls. There. Today
Speaker 3: it is known as Bethune Cookman University. It bears her name.
Speaker 3: Missus Bethune by nineteen twenty is an organizer for the
Speaker 3: National Association of Colored Women's Club. She travels Florida preparing
Speaker 3: Black women for the likelihood of the Nineteenth Amendment, teaching
Speaker 3: them how to pay poll taxes, how to pass literacy tests,
Speaker 3: and more. But in the state of Florida. It is
Speaker 3: a very, very, very violent season. There is organized, widespread
Speaker 3: kukux Klan opposition, and she, like all black voting rights
Speaker 3: advt kits in Florida in those years, face terrible retribution.
Speaker 3: The Klan actually visits the campus of her school on
Speaker 3: the eve of election day in nineteen twenty in an
Speaker 3: effort to indiminate Missus Bethune, her faculty, and the Black
Speaker 3: women of Daytona. I raise her story because she's a
Speaker 3: lesson in how nimble black suffragists had to be in
Speaker 3: the face of the violence that was endemic in the
Speaker 3: state of Florida. She shifts her attention to Washington, and
Speaker 3: when she does, she meets up with a new presidential administration,
Speaker 3: the Roosevelt administration, which is working to bring the United
Speaker 3: States out of the depression. And Franklin Roosevelt is passing
Speaker 3: New Deal legislation, wrestling with the Supreme Court around his schemes,
Speaker 3: but he is also working informally with Black Americans in Washington,
Speaker 3: bringing them into this new administrative state that is responsible
Speaker 3: for distributing federal resources and bringing Americans out of the depression.
Speaker 3: And Missus Bethune befriends Eleanor Roosevelt his wife and becomes
Speaker 3: part of what comes to be known as Roosevelt's kitchen Cabinet.
Speaker 3: So there she is. She can't vote, she can't be
Speaker 3: elected out of Florida, but she learns that politics also
Speaker 3: runs by way of relationships, by way of informal bodies
Speaker 3: that are convened by figures like the President, and she
Speaker 3: is able not only to influence Roosevelt's policies, she's able
Speaker 3: to bring many, many black women into the federal government
Speaker 3: in Washington, where they too will help to shape law
Speaker 3: and policy. Despite not having representation in Congress. She lives
Speaker 3: until nineteen fifty five, and that means that her vision
Speaker 3: and ambition grows as the century unfolds. She is present,
Speaker 3: for example, at the founding of the United Nations. Now
Speaker 3: she's taking this vision that began for her in rural
Speaker 3: South Carolina as a girl germinated in Florida at the
Speaker 3: height of Jim Crow, flourished in Washington during the advent
Speaker 3: of the New Deal. Now she's part of an international
Speaker 3: community of women that are asking who can women be?
Speaker 3: Who must women be? In this new post World War
Speaker 3: two configuration of nations. So she shows us the way
Speaker 3: in which suffragists are, yes, deeply committed advocates of voting rights,
Speaker 3: but really always carry with them this far reaching, ambitious, nimble,
Speaker 3: malleable vision for the rights of women. Missus Bethune, I think,
Speaker 3: advises that so beautifully. Her figure was just installed in
Speaker 3: the National Statuary Collection in the Capitol. She replaced a
Speaker 3: Confederate officer that had long represented the state of Florida.
Speaker 3: Now she represents the state of Florida in the Capitol. Amazing.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Well, we have to take a quick break, but don't
Speaker 2: go anywhere. We'll be right back with doctor Martha S. Jones.
Speaker 1: Doctor Jones, it's interesting to think about the Nineteenth Amendment
Speaker 1: in the context of the election this year, in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four, because the debate between federal of our state
Speaker 1: rights is high on everybody's mind. In what ways did
Speaker 1: the nineteenth passage shape what we're seeing today with voting
Speaker 1: and voting access.
Speaker 3: It's a great question. The Voting Rights Act in two
Speaker 3: thousand and eight is gutted, and the US Court does
Speaker 3: away with what we call the preclearance requirement of the
Speaker 3: Voting Rights Act, and so today we live in a
Speaker 3: post of Voting Rights Act nation in which individual states
Speaker 3: are no longer subject to the kind of scrutiny that
Speaker 3: the Voting Rights Act had initially provided for. And this
Speaker 3: is why you see real time questions and real time
Speaker 3: contests over many sorts of voting rights regulation voter suppression mechanisms,
Speaker 3: because no longer does the Voting Rights Act function to
Speaker 3: prohibit those things in advance of an election. Until today,
Speaker 3: we see the legacy of the nineteenth Amendment in the
Speaker 3: distinct voting patterns among American women. It is still true
Speaker 3: that American women, at least until today, we do not
Speaker 3: vote as women. White American women divide between the political parties.
Speaker 3: That was true in nineteen twenty that continues to be
Speaker 3: true today. African American women, on the other hand, come
Speaker 3: out of a distinct tradition, which is voting as a block,
Speaker 3: voting as a whole, using their small numbers to mighty
Speaker 3: effect by deliberating over candidates, deliberating over positions, and then
Speaker 3: using their vote in a concerted way. I think this
Speaker 3: is one of the questions for twenty twenty four. And
Speaker 3: we will see, won't we in short order whether there's
Speaker 3: been a shift. But I think one of the legacies
Speaker 3: of the struggle and the unevenness and the discrimination that
Speaker 3: persisted after the nineteenth Amendment is that until today, black
Speaker 3: and white women in America vote very differently.
Speaker 1: There's things online during election days. Women sometime times will
Speaker 1: post Ruth Bader Ginsburg sent me to the polls, or
Speaker 1: whichever name of a woman that they feel inspired by,
Speaker 1: saying that you know this woman sent me. As I
Speaker 1: was going to the polls, was thinking about who I
Speaker 1: was voting for this year, and I think what I
Speaker 1: came up with was that I'm voting for all of
Speaker 1: the women whose names I don't know. We focus so much,
Speaker 1: of course, in history, on these really remarkable people whose
Speaker 1: names are in our history books, and there are so
Speaker 1: many women who did remarkable things that we don't know about.
Speaker 3: I love that, so thank you for sharing it with me.
Speaker 3: One of the things I hope people take away from
Speaker 3: this history is a bit what you've said, which is
Speaker 3: that there are so many extraordinary heroes in our past. Yes,
Speaker 3: there are fraught, difficult, regrettable, even right elements and dynamics
Speaker 3: in the story of women's suffrage in the United States,
Speaker 3: But along the same route, there are women who have
Speaker 3: been courageous and righteous and ambitious for themselves and ambitious
Speaker 3: for us, those of us who come behind them. And
Speaker 3: I do think that there's something so powerful about reaching
Speaker 3: back for them. Some names we know, and you're so right,
Speaker 3: many names we don't know, but reaching back for them,
Speaker 3: bringing them with us to the polls. We have to
Speaker 3: carry with us that political history, because it is not
Speaker 3: a political history that can be told simply through the
Speaker 3: stories we already know. So I'm glad to hear that,
Speaker 3: and I love the idea that we do. Indeed, as
Speaker 3: some of our women leaders have put it right, we
Speaker 3: all stand on the shoulders of other women on election Day.
Speaker 2: Well said, thank you for that, Professor Jones, thank you
Speaker 2: so much for joining us today.
Speaker 3: It's my pleasure. Thanks for having me. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Doctor Martha S. Jones is a professor of history and
Speaker 2: the author of Vanguard, How Black women broke barriers, won
Speaker 2: the vote, and insisted on equality for all. Her new book,
Speaker 2: The Trouble of Color, an American family memoir, is out
Speaker 2: next year.
Speaker 1: It is election day. Your voice truly matters. The best
Speaker 1: way to honor those who came before us and all
Speaker 1: of their sacrifices is to vote. To check your pulling location,
Speaker 1: go to vote dot org. That's it for today's show. Tomorrow,
Speaker 1: it's International Stress Awareness Day. We're talking to psychologist and
Speaker 1: Northwestern University professor Judith Moskowitz all about cultivating positive emotions
Speaker 1: so that we can better deal with our stress.
Speaker 2: Join the conversation using hashtag the bright Side and connect
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Speaker 2: Danielle Robe.
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Speaker 2: See you tomorrow, folks, Keep looking on the bright side.