The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again

by Robert D. Putnam

The racism that came to characterize the early-century women’s movement was especially striking, given that many early feminists had initially found common cause with enslaved African Americans, and had found their voice as passionate participants in the abolitionist movement that preceded the Civil War. But in 1870 the Fifteenth Amendment, which legally gave the vote to black males, had been ratified, and despite the fact that granting the vote to women had been demanded and vigorously debated alongside the issue of black male suffrage, “sex” was conspicuously absent from the protected categories of the amendment. This fact incensed some white suffragists and had the effect of driving a wedge between the movements for racial justice and gender equality, and even caused a rift among suffragists themselves.