Confronted with the double burden of racism and sexism, Black suffragettes in the South were excluded from political campaigns and suffrage organizations formed by white women.[1] While Black women’s organizations worked diligently for voting rights outside the region, Black suffragettes in the South were faced with a different reality. The woman suffrage movement coincided with an era of Black disenfranchisement where the threat of lynching and extrajudicial violence diminished the scope of Black political activity.[2] While Black suffragists in the North could form organizations and advocate for voting rights, the hostile racial climate of the South and fear of violent retaliation from southern whites kept many Black women from making public demands for suffrage. Despite the looming threat of assault and death, some Black women did publicly advocate for suffrage and examples of Black suffrage organizations have been recovered in Tuskegee, Alabama, Charleston, South Carolina, and Memphis, Tennessee. While evidence of Black woman’s suffrage in the Jim Crow South has often been hidden from historical record, there was doubtless support for voting rights that took place behind closed doors in spaces removed from white surveillance.

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