During the Reconstruction era leading figures in the suffrage movement unsuccessfully demanded women's right to vote be included in the Fifteenth Amendment.
This position led to a split within the movement in 1867. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Sojourner Truth and Susan B. Anthony opposed the Reconstruction amendments because they excluded women. Others within the movement, including Lucy Stone and the abolitionist Frederick Douglass, believed that women's suffrage could wait until after black men had won civil and voting rights and saw the 15th Amendment as helping that cause.
It's hard to wait for what is right. Especially when you see that it could be done so easily, and that others are receiving the very thing you desire. Courageous men and women. I don't really know how their fight affected their lives, but I am grateful for their sacrifice.
ReplyDelete