![]() That’s the power of narrative - historians will go back to that story. “The story is the way it is now because Susan B. Giddings, professor emeritus at Smith College who has written about the role of Black women in American society. “We don’t yet have the story of women’s suffrage in a way that shows Black women’s impact and our significance in the movement,” said Paula J. Yet their presence at the 1913 parade is still not widely known. More than a century later, African American women’s powerful role as political organizers and committed voters is once again in the spotlight as presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden considers naming a Black woman as his running mate. Segregated in the back of the suffrage parade by its White organizers, the Deltas and other African American women were pioneers in paving the way for future Black political activism. And marching nearby was Vashti Turley Murphy, a stylish graduate of D.C.’s Dunbar High who was pursuing a career as a teacher. There was her sorority sister, Osceola Adams, a Georgia native with a dramatic flair who drew applause on the university stage. There was Bertha Pitts Campbell, a vivacious young student who loved to dance but as valedictorian of her Colorado high school knew how to be serious, too. at Howard University debuting as warriors for their race. Yet a combing of the crowds would have revealed African American women, unlisted in the official program, who had for decades battled racism within the movement to take their rightful place in history.Īmong them were the 22 young founders of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. (Bain News Service/Library of Congress)Ī spectator observing the vast sea of faces that day might have been excused for thinking that all the marchers were White. Black suffragists were relegated to the back of the procession. Women on horseback lead a procession on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington calling for women's suffrage in March 1913.
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