Susan B. Anthony vowed to cut off his hand, and not demand to vote “for a black man, and not for a woman”?

Demand:

Susan B. Anthony once said, “I will cut off my right hand before I ever work or claim the ballot for a Negro rather than a woman.”

Rating:

Ahead of the 2024 presidential election, a photo has gone viral showing women placing “I Voted” stickers on the grave of famed suffragette Susan B. Anthony in the last election. As US Vice President Kamala Harris was vying for the presidency, many people online said the gesture was especially meaningful now that a black woman is running for president.

However, a number of posts attempted to counter this sentiment by highlighting a quote attributed to Anthony that indicated her racist views, including a desire to continue denying black men the right to vote, at least until that right was successfully secured for women. .

In the messages on X, the alleged quote Anthony was mentioned: “I will cut off my right hand before I ever work or demand ballots for a black man, and not for a woman.”

(User X @rahne_jones)

Anthony actually made this statement in 1866, after a meeting also attended by black abolitionist and activist Frederick Douglass. Her biographies vary on the exact wording, and they mention that she said she would cut off her “arm” or “hand”. Anthony was responding to the debate over whether black men or white women should receive suffrage. A version of the quote was given by her official biographer. So we think this is correct.

Quote in context

On the website of the National Constitution Center, a Washington, D.C. museum dedicated to the U.S. Constitution, she is quoted as saying:

(Seneca Falls Convention of 1848) is also notable for its exclusion of black women and other minority women. Exclusion was a prominent aspect of the new suffrage movement, which at times seemed to view suffrage as a zero-sum game between oppressed populations.

At an 1866 meeting in which Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony debated whether to give priority to black male suffrage or white women’s suffrage, Anthony said, “I will cut off my right hand before I ever work or demand The ballot is for the Negro, not the woman.”

Black women were still largely excluded from discussions of suffrage, as seen in Sojourner Truth’s 1867 commentary on the issue: “There is great commotion about colored men getting their rights, but not a word about colored women; and if the colored men get their rights, and the colored women not theirs, the colored men will be the masters of the women, and it will be as bad as ever.”

The Susan B. Anthony National Museum says the quote comes from a story written by Ida Husted Harper, a suffragist and journalist who was asked by Anthony herself to be her biographer, Britannica reports. The museum recounts how, in 1866, Anthony was privately approached by abolitionists Theodore Tilton and Wendell Phillips, who asked her to pause work on women’s suffrage and concentrate on getting the votes only for men of color. She reportedly said these words in anger.

According to Volume I of Harper’s book, The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony, Anthony made this remark in a private meeting after speaking at the Women’s Rights Convention, where she essentially emphasized the need to unite the interests of black people and women. . This is Harper’s version of the meeting (emphasis added):

Shortly after this (Women’s Rights Convention of 1866), Miss Anthony, Mrs. Stanton, Mr. Phillips and Mr. Tilton were in the Standard office discussing work. Mr. Phillips argued that it was time to remove the word “white” from the New York Constitution at the upcoming convention, but not to remove the word “male.” Mr. Tilton supported him, in direct contradiction to everything he had so ardently advocated only a few weeks ago, and said that women should agitate the state with speeches and petitions for the enfranchisement of the Negroes, leaving women’s enfranchisement to happen later, presumably twenty years later, when it happens another revision of the constitution. Mrs. Stanton, completely amazed by the eloquence of these two gifted people, silently agreed with everything they said; but Miss Anthony, who could not be swayed from her standards by any sophistry or persuasion, was extremely indignant, and declared that she would sooner cut off her right hand than ask for a ballot for a black man rather than a woman. After Phillips left, she heard Tilton say to Mrs. Stanton, “What’s bothering Susan? She acts like she’s possessed.” Mrs. Stanton replied, “I can’t imagine; I have never seen her so unreasonable and absolutely rude before.”

It should be noted that the Susan B. Anthony Museum calls the idea that Anthony favored white women’s suffrage over black women’s suffrage in general as a “misconception.” It quotes another statement from Anthony, in which she demands equal rights “for every man, black or white, and for every woman, black or white”:

This is not a matter of priority between women and black men. None of them claims priority over the platform of equal rights. But the object of this association is to demand of every man, black or white, and of every woman, black or white, that they be immediately enfranchised and admitted into the body politic with equal rights and privileges.

Anthony was a member of an anti-slavery family, but he prioritized white women’s suffrage over black men’s, while black women were completely excluded from the debate. Shortly before Anthony made her announcement about cutting off her hand, she gave a speech at the Women’s Rights Convention that emphasized combining these reasons into one (emphasis added):

There is and can be only one true reason, and that is that taxation and representation must be inseparable; therefore our demand must now go beyond woman—it must extend to the furthest limits of the principle of the “consent of the governed” as the only authoritative or just government. Therefore, we want to expand our platform on women’s rights and make it in name what it has ever been in spirit: a platform on human rights. As women, we can no longer demand for ourselves what we do not demand for others, and we cannot work in two separate movements to obtain the ballot for the two disenfranchised classes, the Negroes and the women, at a cost of double the cost of time. energy and money. … Therefore, that we may henceforth concentrate all our energies to the practical application of our one great, distinctive national idea—universal suffrage—I hope that we will unanimously adopt the resolution laid before us, thereby committing ourselves to the American Equal Rights Association.

Although she formed the American Equal Rights Association with black activists such as Douglas, there was constant tension within the group over its priorities. Anthony and Douglas had a long-term friendship, which was also fraught with disagreements. First, according to history professor Lisa Tetreault, black women were ignored in AERA activism.

The AERA dissolved in 1869 due to disagreements over whether to support the 15th Amendment, which gave black men the right to vote. Indeed, Anthony was among the suffragists who did not support the 15th Amendment.

In an 1868 speech to a group of black men, Anthony argued against the amendment because if voting “is an inalienable right, it is as much a right of a black woman as it is a right of white men.” any class of men without demanding it for all women who are deprived of it.”

Sources