Mary Cassatt and the Women's Vote

[@kathydea]

I take strong exception to the speaker's assertion that the 19th Amendment omitted black women and others from the franchise. The speaker says this on one slide, and then follows it with the actual text of the 19th Amendment. The Amendment clearly states "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex." Rather you have to focus on the fact that States did in fact abridge certain citizens right to vote based on race and ethnicity--and men were included in those exclusions as well as women. Under the Constitution states were given wide latitude in determining who could qualify to vote--which is why the 15th and 19th Amendments were needed. But as we know, few of the southern states voted for the 19th amendment because they simply didn't want more black voters, that they'd then have to disenfranchise with their Jim Crow laws. It took the Voting Rights Act to fix that. It's unfair to criticize the 19th Amendment because it didn't right all the wrongs of our society.

[@sl-te2xh]

Awesome, thanks for this!!!!