Resolution of the [Rhode Island] Union Colored Women's Clubs Supporting the Federal Woman Suffrage Amendment, 1916

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Related Link: Woman Suffrage Centennial

credit: Records of the U.S. Senate, National Archives

The issue of race was a continuing theme during the decades of Senate debate over the woman suffrage amendment. Some senators were willing to consider extending suffrage rights to white women but insisted on denying those rights to African-American women. Race also divided the suffrage movement, with some white activists insisting that suffragists should be segregated in public demonstrations. African-American suffragists continued to call for the same rights that had been extended to black men in 1870 with the Fifteenth Amendment, sending petitions like this one to their members in Congress.