White election officials systematically blocked two million newly enfranchised Southern black women from voting

Evidence

After the woman’s suffrage amendment was passed in 1920, some reformers wondered whether it would benefit black women as well as white women—especially in the South where black men had been virtually disenfranchised by the white power-holders. Over two million newly enfranchised black women lived in the South. When suffragists suggested to Alice Paul that the voting rights of black women would be a continuing vital issue, she replied that the year 1920 was not the time to discuss that question. Rather, she said, the suffragists should enjoy their new political power and make plans for other battles in the future. Yet as the reformers had foreseen, when black women went to the polls in Alabama or Georgia, they found that white election officials had a bag of tricks ready to prevent them from voting. If a black woman could read a complicated text put before her, the white official would find some other obscure reason why she was ineligible to vote. And any woman who persisted was threatened with violence if she did not obediently slink away. — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 496

Categorization

• XREF: Concrete instance of how formal legal rights fail without enforcement — parallels the book’s broader theme of feminism’s limits for black women. — connects to: Suffrage politics trapped black women between racist feminists and sexist black men; A biased Reconstruction narrative enabled Southern disfranchisement of blacks; White elected officials punished officials who proposed integrated housing — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long: The Legacy of White…, 195

Broader Connections

• A biased Reconstruction narrative enabled Southern disfranchisement of blacks #corroborates (0.75)
• Suffrage politics trapped black women between racist feminists and sexist black men #expands (0.70)