Obviously, this is not a simple question! You might want to look at the situation of ealry black femisnists like Sojourner Truth...

In 1851 Truth traveled to Ohio to attend a women's rights convention. When she approached the podium to speak, some people taunted her, but she proceeded anyway. She told her audience, "I could work as much and eat as much as a man … and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?" Truth's speech moved the crowd. At the time, neither free blacks nor American women could vote, and there were dual movements to abolish slavery and grant women suffrage. After slavery officially ended in 1865 with the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the status of blacks remained in question. Some in the women's right movement hoped to push for both women's suffrage (right to vote) and full citizenship rights for blacks, too. More moderate voices on both sides kept the two issues separate, however. For a time, Truth worked with Susan B. Anthony(1820-1906) and Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902), the most prominent leaders in the suffrage movement, but broke away from them when Stanton stated that she refused to support black suffrage unless women were guaranteed the right to vote first.

When former slave Sojourner Truth rose to speak to a crowd of women's rights supporters in Akron, Ohio, in 1851, many women in the audience voiced their concern. Some objected simply on racial grounds, believing that a black woman had no right to get up and speak to a room full of white women. (Although slavery had been abolished in the North, many northerners still held racist views at that time.) Others were concerned that Sojourner Truth's appearance at the meeting would make it look like the women's rights movement was connected to the abolition movement. They wished to avoid that association because slavery was such a controversial issue. Ignoring the audience reaction, Sojourner Truth spoke passionately of women's strength, common sense, and abilities. She dismissed the notion that women were too delicate and irrational to have the same rights as men. The women in the audience cheered. Although Sojourner Truth became a famous and beloved supporter of abolition and women's rights, most other African American suffragists were unable to rise to such heights. While some white suffragists welcomed all activists regardless of race, the suffrage movement overall did not accept black women. One of the earliest male supporters of women's suffrage was the former slave and widely respected abolitionist Frederick Douglass. The women's movement welcomed the support of this distinguished African American man but gave little voice to African American women. Historians know that numerous black women supported the women's suffrage movement, though they were allowed only minimal participation in suffrage organizations. In most cases, their names have not been recorded for history. Those who did achieve some level of prominence in the movement included Harriet Forten Purvis (1810-1875) and her sister Margaretta Forten (c. 1815-1875). These women were part of prominent African American families known for their work in the abolition and women's rights movements. Many black women's rights supporters formed their own associations. They did this either because they were forced out of white organizations or because they chose not to join a group that didn't want them. Mary Church Terrell (1863-1954) founded the Colored Women's League in 1892. Her organization later merged with another to form the National Association of Colored Women (NACW), and Terrell was later elected president of that group. One of the best-known African American suffragists was Ida B. Wells-Barnett (1862-1931). As part owner of a black newspaper in Memphis, Tennessee, Wells-Barnett had gained a reputation as a determined, outspoken seeker of justice. At a time when white mobs in the South terrorized black citizens-sometimes resulting in brutal murders, or lynchings, of innocent blacks-Wells-Barnett risked her own safety by writing passionate editorials condemning lynchings. She spent many years of her life arguing for the passage of laws that would make lynching a federal crime. Wells-Barnett also devoted much of her life to the fight for women's suffrage, despite the fact that the mainstream white organizations denied her equal standing with white suffragists. At the start of a massive 1913 suffrage parade in Washington, D.C., the parade's organizers asked Wells-Barnett to march in a segregated section for African Americans rather than with the white suffragists from her state of Illinois. She refused, insisting that she march alongside the white women or not at all. From the sidelines, Wells-Barnett watched the parade begin, quietly joining the Illinois group as they passed by. At many times during the decades-long battle for women's right to vote, black suffragists were rejected from the major national women's groups because the leaders were concerned about offending southern white women. Many southerners, even those passionate about women's right to vote, felt strongly that black women should not be included in that right. African American suffragists, bearing the dual burden of being black and female in a nation that undervalued both groups, were left to fight their own battles.

from "The Women's Suffrage Movement." American Social Reform Movements Reference Library. Ed. Judy Galens. Vol. 2. Detroit: U*X*L, 2007.

Lesley Williams

Evanston Public library

http://www.epl.org/library/reference-help.html