A new article published in the New York Times by Professor Sarah Lewis explores how "photographs of generations of Black suffragists offer invaluable documents about their thwarted and central roles in the history of women’s rights."
With precious little scholarship about many women of color in the suffrage movement, these images become invaluable conduits to the past.
This is part of the untold legacy of the racial bias in the journey toward women’s suffrage: The uses of photography by Black women in the battle for the right to vote offered this country an indispensable lens on itself. Douglass knew that the civic and moral imagination in the United States was dependent on images. The history of Black suffragists shows us that looking is our collective work.
The full article is available to read on the New York Times Website.