As we commemorate 100 years of the 19th Amendment this week, many women of color, and Black women in particular, did not feel much like celebrating. When this historic amendment was adopted and ratified by the state of Tennessee and became the U.S. Constitution in 1920, Jim Crow’s segregation raged in the South. Black men were still faced with excessive and racially discriminatory laws, literature tests, and poll taxes that they refused what was passed by the 15th Amendment 50 years earlier: The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or denied by the United States or by any other state on account of race, color, or previous service.
It was clear that the voice of women would not extend to Black women in the South. But history has a way of correcting itself as people keep waiting, and no group in America has remained more politically and socially vigilant than Black women. Kamala Harris – the only Black woman in the U.S. Senate and just the second to ever be – made that point ever so clear when she accepted the Democratic nomination on Wednesday night for vice president and gave America a taste of what we are missing by relegating Black women so far to second place.
She began by talking about the 19th Amendment, and the Black women who, after their passage, “passed” without fanfare or recognition … organized and marched and fought not only for their vote, but for a seat at the table . These women worked to create democracy and opportunity in the lives of all of us who followed. “
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