‘Unsung heroines’
Experts uncover more stories about CT suffragettes of color
Over 100 years after American women secured the right to vote, researchers are bringing to light the stories of over a dozen women of color who tirelessly championed for the 19th amendment in Connecticut.
On Feb. 1, for its Women of Color Suffrage Project, the Connecticut Historical Society will update its website to include biographies of suffragettes representing Hartford, New Haven, Bridgeport, Stamford, New London and Norwich.
Dr. Brittney Yancy, a professor at Illinois College, and Dr. Karen Li Miller, a research historian at CHS, and research assistants, Chianna Calafiore and Chelsea Echevarria, have been compiling these stories since 2021 during the second phase of the project. Created in 2019, the project aims to rediscover women of color who advocated for voting rights before and after the 19th amendment was ratified in 1920, but whose stories have been excluded from the general narrative.
“We realized that there was a story there, and there were unsung heroines who needed to be discussed and their stories needed to be told,” Yancy said.
Women of color started organizing before the famous 1848 Seneca Falls Convention and the activists, especially Indigenous women, often inspired white suffragists. Excluded from white suffragist organizations, many women of color created their own leagues such as the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs, which was formed in 1896, Yancy said in a previous interview.
At the end of the 19th century, a great migration of people moving from the Jim Crow south brought women who would become prominent suffragettes in Connecticut. The state became a hub for the national suffrage movement due to its location and advanced transportation and communication infrastructure, Miller said. Large churches or venues in cities like Hartford and Stamford would host gatherings with hundreds of advocates, she said.
The project exhibit in spring 2021, funded by Connecticut Humanities, featured biographies of women who organized in Hartford and New Haven. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, most of the resources Yancy and Miller could access were located only in the two cities. Later that year, with a grant from the League of Women Voters, they could travel further for research and examine a broader variety of sources. Their most recent findings, outlined in a 30-page report, portray a wider network of activists throughout Connecticut, Yancy said.
“We understand that the stories of people of color in this country are not oftentimes captured. Overwhelmingly not. And specifically, the stories of women are often not captured,” Yancy said. “So to do a project that is interested in uncovering women of color was certainly a challenge for us.”
When they began publishing their research, readers would send photos and information they gathered from family members or heard through word of mouth, Miller said.
“It was a great way of collaborating with the community to expand what we know of these women,” she said.
They studied census records, archives from historical societies, library documents and newspaper excerpts. Yancy traveled to the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. and to basements of churches and community centers in Connecticut, which contained archives of institutions like the Women’s League in Hartford, established in 1917.
“Before, when these women were having their organizational meetings, they were not meeting at a hall or at a hotel,” she said. “These people are meeting in their safe spaces, and that is in their churches.”
Norwich was an early hub for black female activism, Yancy said. The Rose of New England Women’s League, the first known Black women’s club organization in the state, was established there in the late 19th century, she said, as was Connecticut’s first chapter of the Northeast Federation of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs.
“We’re highlighting people who fought against discrimination, who fought for equality, who truly believed in the value of the vote, the value of full citizenship and being active in communities,” Miller said. “They wanted the vote in order to fight lynching. They wanted the vote to fight poverty, to get access to equal education and job opportunities.”
Ilene Frank, deputy executive director at CHS, said in an email that one the project’s most notable impacts is the plaque installed at the State Capitol naming 29 suffragettes of color, whom CHS identified through their research. In 1934, the League of Women Voters created a plaque honoring suffragettes that named only white women.
Through the project, Miller and Yancy are discovering suffragettes from Asian American, Latina and Indigenous communities, she said.
“It takes work to look at an event from multiple perspectives.
It takes effort to seek out the evidence of all those involved in a movement. But the result is a history that is vibrant because it is inclusive,” Frank said in an email.
“I’m so certain that there are many stories out there. And I hope that this inspires people to look into their past,” Miller added. “Just because you see that your great grandmother was a mother and a boarding housekeeper ... she might have been out there pushing for political rights, too.”
Here are a few of the women CHS plans to highlight.
Clara Burr
Burr was born in Middletown and served as a longtime president of the The Rose of New England Women’s League. Established in 1897, the league aimed to uplift education of Black women and children in Norwich, according to Miller and Yancy’s findings. Burr also served as a vice president for the Northeastern Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs, held membership with the National Association of Women’s Clubs and was heavily involved in activism for the McKinley Avenue A.M.E. Zion Church, also known as the Evans Memorial A.M.E. Church in Norwich.
Rebecca Tanner
Mary Church Terrell, the first president of the NACWC, worked closely with Rebecca Tanner from Stamford, Yancy said.
Tanner, a Black business woman and civil rights advocate, was also a member of the National Republican League of Colored Women, Yancy said. Founded in the 1920s, the organization’s members encouraged Black women to exercise their right to vote and fight discrimination.
“This organization demonstrates that the 19th amendment was for some — not all — women, and women of color have to march on beyond 1920,” Yancy said.
Elizabeth Jeter Greene
Greene was involved in the League of Women Voters of New England and led several organizations working to increase representation in politics. In 1920, she was named president of the Norwich branch of the Equal Franchise League, a state-by-state women’s suffrage organization, according to the Norwich Bulletin.
Greene participated in numerous municipal and civic agencies and advocated for antipoverty reform, according to their findings.
Lena Knighton
Described as one of first Black women to engage in Hartford politics, Knighton worked closely with politician Boce Barlow, who later served as a state senator. Knighton also founded the Bethel Africa Methodist Episcopal Church in 1918, according to the Hartford Courant.