Yet She is Advancing: New Orleans Women and the Right to Vote: 1878—1970

The year is 1920. The nineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution has passed, extending the right to vote to all women in the United States. But here in Louisiana? Well, that was another story. Black women would be denied their constitutional rights as citizens of this country for a further half a century—Louisiana only ratified the law five decades after it was passed nationally. This was despite the passage of the 15th Amendment in 1870, which stated that U.S. citizens would not be denied their right to vote “on account of race.”

An exploration of that tumultuous historic period, which included extensive disenfranchisement of Black women, and their dedicated, decades-long fight to claim their rightful place in the voting booth, is the subject of the compelling exhibition, Yet She is Advancing: New Orleans Women and the Right to Vote: 1878—1970. On view through November 5, 2023, this exhibition began as a virtual presentation in 2020 and has since been expanded to deliver a full, in-gallery experience housed at The Historic New Orleans Collection’s Tricentennial Wing at 520 Royal Street. 

The battle to secure equal voting rights by Southern women is a history few of us studied widely at school, let alone heard about first-hand. But across the South, race continued to be a central factor in the heated debate over voting rights through much of the twentieth century. In segregation-era New Orleans, while women demanded voting rights across society, the women’s clubs that formed to address the issue were themselves segregated. So Black women formed their own, such as the Phyllis Wheatley Club, which was founded by Sylvania Williams in 1894. 

Suffragists and States' Rights

In an era when Louisiana laws effectively disenfranchised Black women despite passage of a federal amendment guaranteeing their right to vote, the women’s suffrage movement was largely led by white women. Indeed, some of the same women championing their own right to vote actively lobbied to block African American women from doing the same. In 1913, the influential women’s suffragist Kate M. Gordon organized the Southern States Woman Suffrage Conference (SSWSC), which advocated for placing control over decisions about expanding suffrage in the hands of individual states. Indeed, when the Nineteenth Amendment was submitted in June, 1919, Gordon opposed it, fearing that a federal amendment that guaranteed voting access to all women would place too much power in the hands of African Americans. For much of the early twentieth century, organizations like the SSWSC continued to rally their base to lobby against the granting of universal suffrage.

A Century-Long Struggle

By sharing the stories of leading suffragists and civil rights activists of the time, “Yet She Is Advancing” showcases how Black women fought for a century, and finally won the right to vote in the face of tremendous opposition. “Yet She Is Advancing” is presented as a companion exhibition to American Democracy: A Great Leap of Faith–– from the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service –– which examines the continuing evolution of America’s experiment to form a government for the people. It will be on view from June 17 – October 8.

About HNOC

Yet She Is Advancing is on display at 520 Royal Street in the French Quarter. Admission is free, but advanced reservations are recommended. The Historic New Orleans Collection, founded in 1966, is a museum, research center and publisher dedicated to the stewardship of the history and culture of New Orleans and the Gulf South.