More Utah
<span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0">Read this thread from <a href="https://twitter.com/KatCKitt" dir="ltr" class="css-4rbku5 css-18t94o4 css-901oao css-16my406 r-1n1174f r-1loqt21 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0">@KatCKitt </a></span><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0">for more on <a href="https://twitter.com/BetterDays2020" dir="ltr" class="css-4rbku5 css-18t94o4 css-901oao css-16my406 r-1n1174f r-1loqt21 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0">@BetterDays2020 </a></span><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0">and these gorgeous illustrations of the Utah women who changed history. <a href="https://twitter.com/Kate_Kelly_Esq" dir="ltr" class="css-4rbku5 css-18t94o4 css-901oao css-16my406 r-1n1174f r-1loqt21 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0">@Kate_Kelly_Esq </a></span><span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0">- have you seen this?!</span>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">In Utah, nonprofit <a href="https://twitter.com/BetterDays2020?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@BetterDays2020</a> works to highlight the 150th anniversary of women’s 1st votes here in 1870—the 1st in the US cast under a women’s equal suffrage law— and share stories of women’s leadership that can inspire greater civic engagement. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ncph2020?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ncph2020</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/s58?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#s58</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/FirstToVote?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#FirstToVote</a></p>
— Katherine Kitterman (@KatCKitt) <a href="https://twitter.com/KatCKitt/status/1240674259048923137?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 19, 2020</a></blockquote>
Daily Suffragist
<a href="https://twitter.com/DailySuffragist/status/1240703377132023808" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Original thread.</a>
19/03/2020
Utah sesquicentennial minus 9
Happy sesquicentennial Utah! <br /><br />Women voted in Utah beginning 150 years ago tomorrow - with a gap from 1887-1896. Why? <br /><br />B/c women's votes were endlessly a political football in the anti-Mormon nat'l politics of the 19th c. Read more from @<a href="https://twitter.com/BetterDays2020" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">BetterDays2020</a> and take a look at...<br class="twitter-tweet" /><p lang="en" dir="ltr">“By the time Utah’s Legislature ratified the 19th Amendment, Utah women had been voting for a total of 40 years.â€<br /><br />Katherine Kitterman, Historical Director of Better Days 2020, on the 100th anniversary of Utah’s ratification of the 19th amendment.<a href="https://t.co/LhMnFiqXSz">https://t.co/LhMnFiqXSz</a></p>
— BetterDays2020 (@BetterDays2020) <a href="https://twitter.com/BetterDays2020/status/1179522946299121666?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 2, 2019</a>
><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://twitter.com/DailySuffragist/status/1228164533207724032/photo/1" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">This 👇</a>petition from an earlier, 1878 Congressional attempt to take the vote away. It reads: <br /><br />"...whereas a clause in said bill is expressly designed to disfranchise the women of Utah, we deem it our imperative duly to plead in self-defense." <br /><br />...we verily believe that the passage of the aforementioned bill, in wresting from us every legal means of self-defense would furnish a pretext for the enemies of justice, law and order, to inaugurate a state of things akin to the horrors of the Inquisition... <br /><br />...do not sanction a retrograde step in our onward progress as a powerful nation, by the disfranchisement of forty thousand legal voters." <br /><br />#Suffrage100
Daily Suffragist
<a href="https://twitter.com/DailySuffragist/status/1228164513964257280" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Original thread.</a>
13/2/2020
There is no right to vote
.@<a href="https://twitter.com/Stephen_A_West" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Stephen_A_West</a> says we can celebrate the 15th Amdt sesquicentennial for two months, because that’s how long it took to shuffle the states into line for ratification. <br /><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Happy 150th birthday to the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/15thAmendment?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#15thAmendment</a>!<br /><br />Feb. 3 is now recognized as its ratification date. But back in 1870, it wasn’t proclaimed part of the Constitution for another 8 weeks.<br /><br />Therein lies not a mere technicality, but an important truth about Reconstruction.<br /><br />So, a thread:</p>
— Stephen West (@Stephen_A_West) <a href="https://twitter.com/Stephen_A_West/status/1224354747223879682?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 3, 2020</a></blockquote>
<br />So let’s spend a little more time on what it said, and the pattern it set. <br /><br />The 15th Amendment says “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” <br /><br />The 19th Amendment - which was first drafted in 1870 in hope and belief that it would be the 16th Amendment - says “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.” <br /><br />The 24th Amendment was added to the Constitution in 1964, before Congress passed the Voting Rights Act. It says: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay poll tax or other tax.” <br /><br />Note that the 24th Amendment only applies to federal elections. <br /><br />All of our voting amendments are negative commandments: they tell states what they CAN’T do, but they don’t affirmatively guarantee all citizens the right to vote. This wasn’t an accident - it reflects what was thought possible under the severe restrictions we must work within. <br /><br />Because the Constitution gave white men all the power, +extra to Southern white men, these restrictions on that power are the most we’ve been able to amend it. They haven’t been enough. <br /><br />Each amendment gives Congress the power to “enforce this article by appropriate legislation.” Congress did so after the 15th Amdt, but the Supreme Court nullified those laws. Life for African-Americans in the South reverted to slavery-like conditions for another hundred years. <br /><br />After the passage of the 19th Amendment, Congress did nothing. In 1920 Black women in Southern states should have been protected as new voters, but instead they got an equal share of nothing. Marking the centennial of the 19th & sesquicentennial of the 15th, we can see a pattern. <br /><br /><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/07/opinion/15th-amendment-voting-anniversary.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">In today’s op-ed on the 15th Amdt</a> @<a href="https://twitter.com/jessewegman" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">JesseWegman</a> describes the shortcomings of this pattern. It’s a good summary, though I disagree with his conclusion that “Today’s efforts to reduce voting are rooted more in partisanship than in race.” <br /><br />I appreciate that @jessewegman twice acknowledges that women were excluded from the 15th Amendment. My hope, though, is that we can all shift the language we use when we talk about women’s suffrage. <br /><br />Women didn’t “get” the right to vote. We didn’t “wait” for it. We worked and worked and worked and after the 19th Amdt we continued to work. <br /><br />The goal of @DailySuffragist is for people today to know how much work women did to win the vote and protect it. Nobody gave us anything.
Daily Suffragist
<a href="https://twitter.com/DailySuffragist/status/1226870451483430912" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Original thread.</a>
10/02/2020
The Rollin sisters of South Carolina
Massachusetts wasn’t a surprising place for Black women to participate in the American Woman Suffrage Assoc. - but South Carolina is less obvious. <br /><br />But Black men voted in the state even before the 15th Amdt, and as a result Black women had access to some political power. Thread.<br /><br />Frances, Kate, Louisa & Charlotte “Lottie” Rollin were African-American sisters pushing for women’s suffrage. Louisa spoke from the floor of the South Carolina state legislature in 1869; Frances’ husband argued for women’s votes at the SC Constitutional Convention of 1868. Lottie was a delegate to the SC chapter of AWSA: an integrated, mixed-sex group. <br /><br />In 1870, she addressed them in Charleston: “We ask suffrage not as a favor, not as a privilege, but as a right based on the ground that we are human beings, and as such entitled to all human rights.” <br /><br />I can’t find any image of the Rollin sisters. Instead, SC Rep. Robert Elliott advocating the Civil Rights Act of 1874. “When federal troops were withdrawn from So. Car. in 1877, Elliott was forced from office. He died in poverty on August 9, 1884 at the age of 41.” @<a href="https://twitter.com/ZinnEdProject" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">ZinnEdProject</a>
Daily Suffragist
<a href="https://twitter.com/DailySuffragist/status/1195924350156845056" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Original thread.</a>
16/11/2019
https://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/rollin-sisters/
Black suffragists after the American/National split
As Lucy Stone’s American Woman Suffrage Assoc and Stanton/Anthony’s National WSA warred through the 1870’s, where were African-American women? Mostly erased, it turns out. A handful of Black women joined each, but Rosalyn Terborg-Penn said it’s hard to know if there were more since white suffragists literally wrote them out of the narrative. <br /><br /><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">In today's post for <a href="https://twitter.com/BlkPerspectives?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@BlkPerspectives</a>, we kick off our online forum on the life and work of Dr. Rosalyn Terborg-Penn with an essay from Sasha Turner (<a href="https://twitter.com/DrSashaTurner?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@DrSashaTurner</a>), "Rosalyn Terborg-Penn's African <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Feminist?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Feminist</a> Theory and Praxis" -- <a href="https://t.co/7tWpaIJJCs">https://t.co/7tWpaIJJCs</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/AAIHS?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@AAIHS</a> <a href="https://t.co/Jg0Usd2vMz">pic.twitter.com/Jg0Usd2vMz</a></p>
— Black Perspectives (@BlkPerspectives) <a href="https://twitter.com/BlkPerspectives/status/1186245398488342528?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 21, 2019</a></blockquote>
<br /><br />So we can assume there were other Af-Am suffragists, even in those post-war years when freed people's needs were top priority. I’m going to tell a few of their stories over the days ahead. #Suffrage100 <br /><br />Caroline Remond Putnam was an African-American businesswoman who ran a successful wig factory & salon in Salem, Mass. In January 1870, shortly after the American/National split, AWSA organized a state affiliate in Massachusetts. At the founding meeting, Caroline Putnam was a delegate and elected to the board executive committee. While we don’t know much about her suffrage activities, R. Terborg-Penn says we can presume she stayed active until 1885, when she left the US to join her sister Sarah Remond M.D. in Italy. #BlackSuffragists #Suffrage100
Daily Suffragist
<a href="https://twitter.com/DailySuffragist/status/1194835827328724992" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Original thread.</a><br /><a href="https://twitter.com/DailySuffragist/status/1195172609782140929" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Additional.</a>
14/11/2019
White men, circa 1870
The 15th Amdt was ratified on Feb 3 1870. At @<a href="https://twitter.com/NYCBarAssn" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">NYCBarAssn</a> last night, I sat closer to the front than usual. I had never noticed this quote on the dais before & the date.👇 Related to local judicial corruption, not Reconstruction. But it struck me as surprisingly humble and aware.
Daily Suffragist.
<a href="https://twitter.com/DailySuffragist/status/1189596768578822149" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Original thread.</a>
30/10/2019
Voting rights & plural marriage: The Utah Story
In Utah, suffrage was politically entwined w/polygamy. Women 1st voted in 1870, when UT was a territory seeking to preserve plural marriage vs a hostile federal govt. Giving women the vote demonstrated their independence while enlisting them in defense of Mormon self-governance.<br /><br /><a href="https://twitter.com/USNatArchives" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">@USNatArchives</a> In 1887, Congress outlawed plural marriage + also revoked woman suffrage in the Utah territory. So much for their concern about women's well-being. Utah women didn't get the vote back until statehood, which happened only after the LDS church renounced plural marriage. <br /><br />Utah entered the Union with woman suffrage in its constitution in 1896. #StateOfTheWeek I'm hoping some #LDSwomen <a href="https://twitter.com/TheExponent" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">@TheExponent</a> & elsewhere can chime in w/more historical perspective.
Daily Suffragist
<a href="https://twitter.com/DailySuffragist/status/1177691728293302272" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Original thread.</a>
27/09/2019