The Fifteenth Amendment and the Battle Over Voting Rights

In this activity, designed to take one to two 45-minute class periods, students explore the battle over the Fifteenth Amendment and consider the forces that led to and exacerbated divisions by race and gender.

The Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1870, the third of three “Reconstruction Amendments” ratified in the wake of the Civil War. It prevented the U.S. government and States from denying citizens the right to vote based on “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” Prominent suffragists, including Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, advocated for the inclusion of “sex” among these categories, but were ultimately unsuccessful.

While the Fifteenth Amendment represented a major step in securing voting rights for African American men, many advocates for women’s voting rights felt betrayed. Anthony and Stanton had worked for the abolition of slavery, but when Black suffragists, including Frederick Douglass and Francis Ellen Watkins Harper, advocated for the endorsement of the Fifteenth Amendment as it was written, Anthony’s and Stanton’s reactions were sharp and consequential. Stanton’s reactions, which included the use of racial slurs, exposed her racism and elitism, characteristics that, some historians argue, permeated her makeup and philosophies and served to encourage the racist violence terrorizing the Black South. These racist reactions created a bitter legacy, contributing to a deep divide in the women’s suffrage movement, and presaging the racism within white-led suffrage organizations in the movement’s later years.

Objectives:

• Describe the Fifteenth Amendment and the beliefs that led to its exclusion of women
• Analyze various reactions among advocates for suffrage to the Fifteenth Amendment
• Understand the consequences of the controversy over the Fifteenth Amendment for the women’s suffrage movement
• Optional: Analyze the divergent points of view within the organizers of the 2017 Women’s March on Washington and compare and contrast them with reactions to the Fifteenth Amendment

About the Author

Jessica Leader is a teacher and author. She has taught middle and high school English and social studies for 13 years in New York, Kentucky, and Washington, DC and has authored curriculum materials for several Ken Burns films. Her middle-grade novel, Nice and Mean, was published by Simon and Schuster. She believes in the power of great stories.