Toward a Universal Suffrage: African American women in Iowa and the Vote for All

The contributions of African American women to the suffrage and civil rights movements is frequently overlooked. Rather, historical treatments of these movements usually focus on the contributions of middle-class white women and African American men, respectively. Yet in Iowa, as elsewhere, African American women advocated for civil rights for women and African Americans during these two major social movements of the 20th Century. The Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics is partnering with the Office on the Status of Women and the nascent Central Iowa Community Museum (https://centraliowamuseum.com/) to create a traveling display featuring several notable African American women from Iowa who were active in the Suffrage and Civil Rights movements. This display is funded by the Chrysalis Foundation, Humanities Iowa, and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Iowa State University and is part of the Hard Won, Not Done statewide celebration of the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment (https://19th-amendment-centennial.org/). This display will travel throughout Iowa during the 2020 calendar year.