Browse Items (13 total)

Have you heard about the time Frederick Douglass, Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, Mary Ann Shadd Cary, and Belva Lockwood all occupied the Washington, D.C. Board of Elections?  #DCStatehood Thread  It’s April 14, 1871. DC’s first city-wide election was less…

I try to imagine what it felt like to have no vote. Not an insignificant vote, not a challenged vote, not a gerrymandered vote. No vote. To imagine how it felt to be a woman or an enslaved person in 1856, during a three-way race among pro-slavery…

Just one of many moments of Diane Nash’s fearless leadership, this fr the Freedom Rides: After buses were attacked in Birmingham & Anniston, CORE leader James Farmer was ready to call off what was starting to look like a suicide mission. Diane…

Great thread from @marthasjones_ about the #vanguard. One of these founding mothers is still alive. What if everyone tweeting about the Voting Rights Act tomorrow said #ThankYouDianeNash Commemorating the Voting Rights Act of 1965 must honor Septima…

With the New York referendum looming, The Crisis published its second special issue on women’s suffrage in August 1915. The cover was an arresting composite of Abraham Lincoln & Sojourner Truth. 🧵 26 essays by men and women took up almost…

Unsurprisingly, DailySuffragist readers know their amendments. As 62% of you knew, the 16th Amdt allowed Congress to levy a direct income tax. They needed to amend the Constitution to repudiate a Supreme Court decision that blocked a progressive tax…

Dr @marthasjones_ says we shouldn't talk about suffrage, we should talk about voting rights. There's no before and after, just an ongoing struggle. In that spirit, forgive me sharing a piece about the mechanics of voting today. Our rights depend on…

Voting is everything...and it's so insufficient. It took lifetimes to win, and needs our work to keep. In the words of the future Governor of Georgia, perhaps our future President: “Voting will not save us from harm, but silence will surely damn us…

Great thread from @clancynewyork on the persistence of New York's literacy test for voting. It was introduced in 1923, as a wave of anti-immigrant fervor crested in the US, resulting in closing the borders for 40 years. Compare some states' voter ID…

.@Stephen_A_West 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.  Happy 150th birthday to the #15thAmendment!Feb. 3 is now recognized as its…