While Celebrating 100th Anniversary Of Women's Vote, Experts Reflect On Its Failings For Women Of Color
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Tuesday marks the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote.
On Tuesday, President Donald Trump signed a full pardon for suffragist Susan B. Anthony, who was arrested and convicted for illegally voting in the 1872 election.
New York Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul demanded he rescind the pardon on Twitter, writing, "She was proud of her arrest to draw attention to the cause for women's rights, and never paid her fine. Let her Rest In Peace."
It comes as this year more people are pointing out the 19th Amendment still wasn't a won battle for women of color and female immigrants.
Skydivers celebrated the centennial of the women's vote in the birthplace of the women's rights movement. They touched down across from where famed suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton presented her Declaration of Sentiments in Seneca Falls in 1848.
"Women fought not only for the right to vote, but the right to serve on juries, the right to enter professions," said Barbara Winslow, a historian and professor emerita of women's history at Brooklyn College.
In 1920, the right to vote was granted, but Winslow says it did not challenge, for example, Jim Crow laws in the south, still disenfranchising women of color.
"Northern state voter registration laws were also restrictive," Winslow told CBS2's Lisa Rozner.
Judy Tate, playwright and artistic director of the American Slavery Project, showcases the racial disparities in a series of audio plays called "Black Women in the Ballot."
The divide is clear in a 1913 conversation between leading suffragist Alice Paul and Mary Church Terrell, a founder of the NAACP.
"Women had owned people. It was the only power that they had. They really wanted to vote, but they did not plan on giving that vote to Black women," Tate said.
A new nonprofit news site called The 19th News highlights obstacles women still face at the ballot box. The site's asterisk logo represents those omitted in 1920 and today.
"Women are also 1 in 3 of all front line workers, so they are also thinking about how they are going to exercise their vote," said Chabeli Carrazana, a women and economy reporter for the 19th.
RELATED STORY: Central Park To Welcome Monument To Women's Rights Movement Champions
Preparations are underway on Literary Walk in Central Park to unveil next Wednesday a statue of women's rights pioneers Sojourner Truth, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.
Advocates say there are still voting hurdles, ranging from issues involving the Voting Rights Act to mail delivery.
The women's statues in the park will be the first honoring females in the park's 167-year history, reminding onlookers that women have a voice, too.
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