Itâs been 100 years since 36 states agreed to ratify the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, securing the right of U.S. citizens to vote regardless of their sex.
For decades, however, that right only applied to white women.
In a virtual meeting August 18th, the centennial of the 19th amendmentâs 1920 ratification, the League of Women Voters of Corvallis led a seminar addressing the racist history of the womenâs suffrage movement.
Jessica McDonald, president of the League, said when many people learn about suffrage, they learn about white women such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. But they donât learn about women of other races, such as Ida B. Wells or Mabel Ping-Hua Lee.
âThis singular narrative leaves out the reality that, for so many in this country, they would not see the right to vote for decades,â McDonald said.
Sujittra Avery Carr, an Oregon State University graduate of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, said there is still much to be done to include everyone in the voting process.
âWe talk about womenâs suffrage as if itâs over. We kind of truncate it,â Carr said. âThe language around what we say often puts it in this place in history. But itâs very continued, active work. Itâs not just the work of the women who got the 19th Amendment ratified.â
Furthermore, said NAACP Corvallis/Albany branch president Angel Harris, some states hadnât taken the symbolic step of ratifying the amendment until decades later. As a Mississippi native, Harris said she looks up to women like Wells who kept pushing to have their voices heard, and takes pride in voting to continue that legacy.
âMississippi was one of the states that did not vote to ratify the amendment (in 1920),â Harris said. âIt wasnât until March of 1984 that my dear Mississippi decided. So if someone asks me if Iâm going to vote ⊠I donât have a choice.â
McDonald provided examples of recent systems designed to exclude groups of people from registering to vote or successfully casting a ballot.
One Georgia policy, known as âexact match,â would suspend someoneâs status if their voter registration information didnât mirror their state ID or social security records. It has since been overturned for violating the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Other policies like gerrymandering and, in some states, felony disenfranchisement remain in effect today.
These policies disproportionately affect people from racial minorities or low-income backgrounds.
âJust because something is written into law,â Carr said, doesnât mean itâs enacted properly or people arenât still working to better the resulting issues.
âOftentimes people donât understand how recent it has been that people of color have had the right to vote,â said fellow panelist and Corvallis School Board member Luhui Whitebear. Despite the involvement of minority women during the suffrage movement, âit was the white womenâs work that made it look revolutionary in the eyes of society.â
The panelists agreed that itâs important to prevent history repeating itself. One way is to not just include but also uplift minority voices.donât,â Carr said.