The women who fought to enact 19th Amendment were indeed products of their era, shaped in part by the mixed legacy of democratic reform and racism in the Progressive era of Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. In that era, it was not surprising that the earnest dedication of some white suffragists was tainted by racism and the courage of most black suffragists was largely obscured. But in the struggle to open a larger, biracial vision of the suffragist campaign, it would useful to consider the electoral map that suffragists had to face in seeking the required ratification by 36 of the 48 states.
As the attached map link indicates,* when the 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920, it remained unadopted by a bloc of ten Southern and border states stretching from Louisiana to Delaware. Within three years, Delaware, Connecticut and Vermont joined the ratifiers, but Maryland and eight Southern states withheld ratification in two waves, breaking only in the 1940s and after 1968. The fact that nine Southern and border states resisted joining the rest of the nation in support of women’s suffrage for decades presents a sobering current that should be considered when judging those white suffragists who sought to avoid rather than confront racial politics. While an uncompromised conscience is admirable in individuals, in communities and nations it is often an inspiring but elusive goal.
• https://www.ncpedia.org/media/map/ratification-19th
50
Seems like a pretty big and utterly tone-deaf mistake.
Easy to fix, though: Just do another statue assemblage with the omitted black ladies.
And I am sure some brown and yellow and red ladies will need to be included when their histories are uncovered.
Be sure to leave lots of room for more statues.
25
Yes, we should include all worthy women regardless of color in our memorials.
Susan B. Anthony and her close friend Frederick Douglass supported women's suffrage. Anthony raised by white abolitionist Quakers supported the abolition movement.
She played a key role in organizing an anti-slavery convention in Rochester in 1851. She was stationmaster on the Underground Railroad, and her diary entry in 1861 stated: “Fitted out a fugitive slave for Canada with the help of Harriet Tubman.”
"In 1856, Susan B. Anthony served as an American Anti-Slavery Society agent, arranging meetings, making speeches, putting up posters and distributing leaflets. Even when her image was hung in effigy and dragged through the streets of Syracuse, she kept on working for abolition.
During the Civil War, Susan B. Anthony and fellow reformer, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, put their women’s rights work on hold to organize the Woman’s Loyal League. The league gathered thousands of petitions to outlaw slavery. After the 13th Amendment passed, making slavery unlawful, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady thought the time had finally come for women’s suffrage. They demanded new laws protect everyone’s right to vote; black or white, man or woman. They were disappointed and disillusioned when women were excluded from voting rights under the newly adopted 14th and 15th Amendments."
Quoted from the Susan B. Anthony House website.
Anthony understood we all need to work together to insure a just society.
59
Mr. Staples leaves out the contributions of Hispanic and Native American women. Wait, did I just leave out the contributions of transsexual women?
56
@Shamrock Don't you know by now that some people see every single thing through a racial lens? People are not people, they are black, white, brown, hispanic, Asian, etc. Todays world is the exact opposite of what MLK wanted which was to be judged on character and not the color one's skin. But i digress, its ALL race race race now. Every single issue, event is first and foremost put under a racial microscope, and that is the problem with society today. The media pushes it and creates it. I guess it sells papers.
51
@peversma
Of course, my comment was made in jest to illustrate the absurdity that honoring someone doesn’t mean you are forgetting someone else. I’ve read the Times for 50 years. I know it’s perspective.
21
I think every American should have their own monument. Surely we are all important.
38
@Shamrock
I think various art commissions should just stop making monuments that involve individual people. Nobody can win.
15
How tiresome it is to see so-called progressives doing Trump's work. As the left splinters because of this kind of self-absorbed and profoundly narrow-minded thinking, the forces of evil in this country roll along, united in unapologetic bigotry and misogyny.
Maybe the Times could encourage its writers to attempt some nuance and thoughtfulness in the face of staggeringly complex issues? And maybe the columnists could stop seeing writing as hammers for every nail, real or imagined?
91
Here's the website of the organization that did all the work to create these statues. If you visit the website, you'll see that this is only the first statue of more planned to honor diverse women. You can also read about all those diverse women of many colors on their website. But, let's not let facts stand in the way of a good clickbait op-ed. Why pass up another opportunity to smear the women of the past and present and divide and conquer, sabotaging the solidarity of all women?
https://monumentalwomen.org/
158
Count on the NYT to make everything, everything about race.
53
I hope for a redesign of the monument. I'm a casual reader of American history and even I know that several black women were important players in the movement. I also know that the movement came with an undercurrent of racism, resentment of the black man vote. NYC planners: really?
17
@Harry Did you ever wonder why white women--who worked for decades to empower black men in the abolition movement--would "resent" black men getting the vote? I have a couple of ideas:
1) Because black male abolitionist leaders were on record as being against women getting the vote, including women of color. So, if black men got the vote first, that was that many more votes AGAINST women's suffrage.
2) Stanton and Lucretia Mott has firsthand experience of how empowered black men treat women. At the World Anti-Slavery Convention of 1841 in London, misogynist freed black men from the Caribbean refused to allow white women delegates to speak at the convention. They thought having women speak would hurt the cause because women weren't supposed to speak in public. And the women were silenced. This indignity at the hands of freed black men was one of the inspirations for Stanton's Seneca Falls Convention of 1842.
70
as a concerned citizen witnessing the erosion of Roe v Wade in real time, I find it not only irresponsible but appalling that the Times would publish such a one-sided piece. How can any recollection of the arguments regarding the 15th amendment not include Frederick Douglass's refusal to include women as he pushed for passage? Mr. Staples, you are a fine writer, but please leave women alone for now and focus on less oppressed populations as you make your case for equality. And if you do insist on targeting white women, please tell the full, much more complex, story.
90
Thank you Mr. Staples. This is 2019, I find the monuments unnecessary. We don't need statues, we need medical care, housing, infrastructure- ALL of us. The Suffragette movement was started by white women's outrage that the black man land owner got the (so-called) right to vote before them. Ah yes, the right. To Vote. AFTER a man of color answers the white pollster question: How many angels dance on the head of a pin? How about I brandish this gun or stick at you as you even come near a polling place. I can read. I don't need statues. Money ought be spent on helping the very citizens of this nation. (thinking of the brutal cruelty of the Pharma industry)
8
Best historical revisionism I’ve seen in awhile. Well done.
23
The main goal of the suffrage movement has always been about elite, primarily white women, getting access to the power held by their male partners or other family members. Most black women and working women know this. Similar to the Talented Tenth concept in civil rights organization.
Neither has ever cared about the masses. So I am,not at all surprised.
7
Okay, let's fix this. Certainly there must be a way other sculptures can be included.
4
I briefly scanned the front page and initially thought this essay was credited to Ross Douthat. For a moment, I was incredulous. Wow, way to go, Ross! Stepping outside the box! . . . then I double checked and realized my mistake.
There's nothing wrong with Mr. Staples being the actual author of this piece. He's an excellent writer who is fast becoming my favorite Times essayist.
But imagine the sort of world this would be if a Ross Douthat, without fanfare or apology, just wrote and published an essay like this one, and readers received that as quotidian.
7
I have a thought. How about no more statues of anyone, period? No matter who the statue is someone gets offended somewhere.
59
Ok, my previous comment was just wordplay, and also true as there is definietely a cynical privilege among white feminists as much as among progressive white men, thus Dr. Staples' article is a sincere challenge.
3
I am disappointed by the number of comments in here complaining that the NY Times is focusing too much on how racism and the ignorance that often accompanies privilege, and ignorance of history in general, affects our decisions. Really?
It is vital that we do focus on this problem especially at this point in our history when it appears hatred and fear of the other is crawling over the country like so many cockroaches.
25
This is no longer about white privilege and institutionalized racism. It’s not even a conversation. It’s a tournament between identity-based cohorts to determine whose voice matters most.
23
Why can't we view Stanton and Anthony as symbols of a struggle and a movement inspired, joined and propelled to victory by courageous women of all races, religions and classes? White persons were key figures in the black civil rights movement, but as a white person, I would not protest that one of them be included in a monument alongside Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks.
34
Thank goodness you wrote this essay. Since statues are the only way we have to teach people about history, they must be as comprehensive as possible.
I wish we could fill whole cities with statues, displacing the unwoken who live there in order to make room. Perhaps we could raze the schools and libraries too if we need more space, as these stories must be represented somehow.
If you have ever visited the ancient city of Pompeii, that's a good model. My one gripe is that their sculptures aren't nearly as diverse as they should be either, but every baby step is still a step in the right direction.
28
The self appointed PC police never let pass an opportunity no matter how trivial to be offended.
65
Is this all the author writes about? He regularly selects a moment of triumph for women then laments there are no women of color featured.
Frankly, it is pathetic that an author could be so one dimensional. Come on NYT, you’re better than that.
105
Thank you, Mr. Staples.
Perhaps taking a look at who is commissioning and funding this design will answer your question as to why it includes only Cady and Stanton?
And, ironically, the reason for the removal of the monument previously at this location was his mistreatment of African American women.
Another argument that this particular location ought to have been worthy of a more inclusive design.
12
Mr. Staples guides our attention to the fact that while progressive minded thinkers might be proponents of black female liberation in writing, they are not yet comfortable setting that conviction in stone
9
A casual reader of this article might come away with the impression that Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony were the only white women who played influential roles in the 19th-century struggle for women’s suffrage.
8
Everyone who lived 100 years ago would be considered racist by today’s standards. Hubert Humphrey was clearly against admission preferences for African Americans. He argued strenuously that the Civil Rights bills would never result in preferential admissions. So he must be racist too. Let alone FDR, Wilson, etc. Obama was against gay marriage as President.
34
@Shamrock. While your point is well taken, the racism of the past is not the point of the article. It is the racism inherent in the monument that basically ignores the contributions of women of color. They risked much more by stepping forward not only against racism but gender discrimination.
18
@Shamrock
Humphrey was right about justice, wrong about the future. The Civil Rights Act is violated every day in most institutions of our society. The bigots have won. Different bigots than before 1964, but still bigots.
6
The author's point about the unfairness of honoring Anthony and what's her name at the expense of black women is well taken, but rescuing people from oblivion obscures the fact that it's where everyone ends up. How many people know anything about Millard Fillmore other than a few academics? As a recent and increasingly forgotten president once said, "In a hundred years who's gonna care?"
1
@phil morse: Well, people are memorialized for certain reasons: usually to represent a larger group or movement, selected for their importance to living people. Publicly honoring Sojourner Truth would not be for her personal sake (according to most of our beliefs), but for the sake of living Black women and children who could appreciate a sense of the role of Black women in history -- and for all the rest of us who can appreciate the same sense, and the sense of humanity overcoming difficulties. As it happens,there just wouldn't be room to put up statues to everybody, although here in Boston we try to fit in as many as we can. I'm not sure if we have one of Millard Fillmore yet.
5
From reading the opinion & reader comments, you'd never guess that diversity is our strength.
14
@David Critical thinking is also our strength. Stanton and Anthony are the two greatest female leaders of the women's suffrage movement, bar none. No amount of character assassination lacking in ethical context can change that. For example, are you aware that more statues are planned for women of color? No? I guess that "context" was left out of this op-ed.
38
@Amy Luna---Yes, Stanton and Anthony deserve to be honored, whatever their prejudices, but so do Sojournor Truth, Sarah Garnet and Ida Wells, for instance. Their contributions should not be minimized or forgotten.
10
None of whom did as much for suffrage as Stanton and Anthony.
7
Tennessee did something right! Way to go, Tennessee. Let’s do that more often. I love you - from your daughter.
5
Perhaps also include Mabel Lee, a Chinese-American New Yorker who argued for the vote for women.
Criticizing Anthony and Stanton... doesn't help anyone. The other side loves to see squabbling among the forces of good.
During such squabbling, the other side focuses on keeping as many people off the voters roles that they can, and on preventing voting on a rational day like Saturday or Sunday, on keeping the vote count systems hackable, and on keeping the ridiculous Electoral College.
Please, let's be a united front.
22
I commend the author, Mr. Staples for recognizing his own privilege and calling attention to this important issue. It is important we see the history and struggles that all have suffered for the rights we have today. As Kimberlé Crenshaw has said, “Acknowledging privilege is hard- particularly for those who also experience discrimination and exclusion. While white women and men of color also experience discrimination, all too often their experiences are taken as the only point of departure for all conversations about discrimination.” I fully support the incorporation of an additional sculpture highlighting any of the black women you mention and would love any further direction on how we can make this known to our great city. In a city that often celebrates its unique diversity, we should all focus on how we can bring more people to the table who are not like us.
9
I guess racism articles get clicks, and sadly the major media outlets have learned this all too well. Without Trump-bashing and Game of Thrones recap/analysis articles, it’s pretty much just race stuff, because frankly there’s just not very much hard news each day.
42
@Jon Really! That just sounds like a gratuitous dig towards an article and subject you don't like looking at, along with an cheap aside at a worthy paper, and a by-the-way (if you happen to be paying attention) nothing about the Trump administration or the American and world political situation is worth discussing ...
...and at the end of it all I just feel sorry for you. I think you should retract your statement.
7
It worked on you, me and everybody else here.
4
The 19th Amendment had no effect on black women's inability to vote, so I have no objection to the exclusion of black women from the monument celebrating white women's suffrage.
Despite the 15th and 19th Amendments, the majority of black PEOPLE were not able to vote freely and consistently until the Voting Rights Act was enacted in 1965. From the end of the Civil War until the 1950s, 90% of blacks lived in the south, and both men and women faced Jim Crow barriers to voting. Black men were able to vote after the 15th Amendment but they lost that right shortly thereafter due to extreme violence by whites in the south. The same barrier to voting extended to black women after the passage of the 19th Amendment.
Sojourner Truth should be celebrated for her abolitionist actions, Ida B Wells should be celebrated for her anti-lynching actions and the other women in the article should be celebrated for their actions in uplifting blacks in the face of anti-black terrorism aka Jim Crow.
15
Do any of the black op-ed writers at the NY Times contribute any pieces that don't have to do with racism? I know for a fact that racism doesn't occupy 100% of the thoughts of every black American in the USA. The NY Times ought to consider implementing the principles of diversity it trumpets regularly in other contexts.
99
@Joe Schmoe Funny, I had to look at the photo accompanying the article. I read Mr. Staples all the time and wasn't conscious of his race.
NYT writers (op-ed and otherwise) don't write exclusively about race or racism. And the persistence of racism in this country occupies the thoughts of many of us, regardless of our background.
Perhaps you're not reading enough? Or reading in your own biases?
23
@KKW
Mr Staples writes exclusively about race. Look it up.
23
I wish that the NYTimes would take a break from their racism fascination. Perhaps all the attention that the subject is receiving, not just from the Times but from many liberal media sources, fuels the racism that they are trying to eliminate.
87
Still waiting for you to print comments providing the ethical context that Staples unethically leaves out....
Crickets....
16
Shocking. You’ve found another way to tell us how terribly racist we all are. Oh, not all of us, just those of us that enjoy white privilege. This is getting idiotic.
83
If white women suffrage leaders kept black women in the background as a political strategy, they had good teachers...BLACK MEN. When Staton crossed and ocean to attend the World Anti Slavery Convention in London in 1841, black male delegates argued that the WHITE FEMALE delegates should not speak because it would delegitimize the movement. The women were silenced. By the white AND black men. Stanton came back and founded the women's suffrage movement, in response to being silenced in London by BLACK MEN.
In another glaring double misogynist standard, yesterday, the Times printed an op-ed explaining why, even though they were flawed, America's Founding "Fathers" should still be respected and honored. After all, they devoted their lives and made great sacrifices for some pretty darn noble principles, even though they were products of the racism, sexist, xenophobia and homophobia of their times. Oh, what a difference a day makes. Or should I say, what a difference a sex makes. There are no suffrage leaders of any color, black white or purple, that were as influential as Stanton and Anthony. None.
96
@Amy Luna: What you say is true, and books can be, and are, written on the faults of heroes. It's a wonder anything has been accomplished at all.
But there is no rule that a monument has to represent only the two most important leaders of a movement. I think the modern, truer idea is to look at historical movements in a larger way, not just the single heroic figures, but the collectives. I never see a monument to Lincoln nowadays without thinking he should have Douglass and Seward up there with him, and maybe Harriet Tubman and John Brown, and a few Black men in Union uniforms... just for historical accuracy.
10
@John Bergstrom Unfortunately, Brent Staples has neglected to do his research. If he had, you would know that this monument is part of a much larger campaign to erect other statues and educate the public on ALL the diverse women of history. A simple google search could have provided Mr. Staples with the info. Here's their website, check it out for yourself. But, it's so much easier to continue to gaslight "feminism" as "racist" and "excluding women of color." You know, divide and conquer. That's how men of all colors have been sabotaging women's solidarity for centuries.
https://monumentalwomen.org/
50
I like the addition of homophobia, which sort of underscores how ridiculous these fights about nineteenth century racism are. It’s a given for me that everyone before the 1970s (and most people until the 2000s)
was homophobic. There were exceptions, and some truly brave heterosexuals that deserve recognition, but the idea of tearing down an otherwise great historical figure because he publicly demonized gays or even helped criminalize homosexuality, for example, is absurd.
17
This monument should be trashed.
2
I suppose you'll delay printing all the comments pointing out Brent Staples continued hypocrisy. He actually links (as a source) to his own previous op-ed, in which he makes the same specious claims with no supporting evidence or context.
16
@Amy Luna
Can you give us some indication of what on earth you are talking about?
3
Since Central Park was run for decades(?) by a white man who brought in his Ivy League "anointed" to rocket over more capable and longer tenured minority staff, this approach to women's suffrage seems historically consistent. Shameful. Abhorrent. But consistent.
5
Thank you for this article.
7
It is shameful that Brent Staples continues to smear the great women of history, leaving out crucial context and nuance. He actually has the audacity to link (as a source) to his own previous op-ed--in which did the same. 1) Black men silenced white women in the Abolition Movement before the women's suffrage movement even started--that's one of the reasons Stanton started it. Black male delegates refused to let white women speak at the World Anti Slavery Convention in 1841. 2) Staples continues to cite Stanton's use of racist tropes to bolster the cause of women's suffrage--but neglects to mention that it was in retaliation to black men's misogynist slurs which cost women of all colors the vote when it was granted to black men only.
96
@Amy Luna
So you are citing a convention during the existence of slavery, and before the Civil War, as evidence of how white men suffered at the hands of black men?
I'm sure the opinion of black men counted for a great deal back then. In dealing with white women: well you could be lynched for looking the "wrong way," but hey you could always deny them the platform at an anti-slavery convention, while most(?) blacks remained enslaved. Incredible!
7
@Amy Luna I clicked on that source link too, thinking it would lead to more information or insight. Instead it simply led to another opinion piece by the same writer that echos this one.
8
@Amy Luna The men who silenced Stanton in London were freed black men living in the Caribbean. Stanton had good reason to fear black men getting the vote before all women. She had seen firsthand the misogyny and hypocrisy of empowered black men.
17
Oh, good grief. Must we look at everything through racial lenses?
62
People of color—especially those in the “liberated, welcoming North”—have long known about municipal statues, monuments and memorabilia, all ostensibly in praise of some white man or woman whose contributions were epoch-changing.
What’s lost to most adoring throngs is that—few exceptions aside—the heroes and heroines sacrificed their lives or their reputations to perpetuate images of white supremacy. That this “commission” gave its blessing to the continued adoration of racist zealots like Susan B. Anthony (her image graces a dollar coin, e.g.) and Elizabeth Cady Stanton is hardly surprising.
Less than two years after Charlottesville, where violence and death visited the Virginia college town because white supremacists gathered to venerate and defend the statues of the Old Confederacy, it is more than tone-deaf of this “commission” to grant its imprimatur to enduring racism. The members surely say: “Women of color don’t count. They have never made any substantial or lasting contributions to the struggles of women.”
It’s so disrespectful and so American.
9
@Red Sox, ‘04, ‘07, ‘13, ‘18
Susan B. Anthony was not a "racist zealot". And she is probably rolling over in her grave thinking men make more dollars in coin, paper, or digitally than women for the same work in 2019.
Time to pass the ERA, and make sure women are compensated equally, and being on coin would probably agitate her simple Quaker roots.
6
Americans are ignorant of history. They have been fed an incomplete and false narrative in school and beyond that needs serious correction. Monuments such as these just perpetuate racial bias and discrimination. Federal dollars are still funding monuments to the Lost Cause, celebrating the Confederacy and its leaders. It is horrific that those planning a contemporary monument in NYC to equality and equal justice could be so egregiously biased and ignorant. It is time to correct the errors in our history. Americans, especially whites, must engage in an examination of the history that is not accurate, true or fair. Read James Loewen's 1995 book Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong for a start. And then listen to the amazing scholars and historians, many who are black, (Ibram Kendi, Ta Nehisi Coates, Michelle Alexander, Elizabeth Hinton, Jeanne Theoharis, Kahlil Gibran Mohammed, Chris Lebron to name a few) who are creating a new inclusive narrative of America.
9
If I compliment you on your writing, that does not diminish the writing of others. I am sorry a monument does not represent history as you wish it be represented. Donate a statute for a park and you can have it your way.
30
To the committee: It’s not too late to correct this. Do it.
12
They already have. That fact was deliberately omitted from Staples’ essay, in order to stir up trouble.
9
Context: Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were known as "suffragettes." Unmarried and childless Susan B. Anthony is said to have chided Stanton for taking time away from the movement to spend time having and raising children. Of Stanton, it is written that Stanton was an edgy and intellectual woman who showed a bias in favor or her personal cause - the cause of women's rights, a cause which Anthony, Stanton and others set aside as they worked for abolition of slavery. Once slavery was abolished, these women were asked again to set aside women's suffrage and/or universal suffrage in the cause of black male suffrage which was legally achieved in 1870. Perhaps Stanton showed some temper and engaged in some offensive labeling because she was tired of waiting for her turn. Context. It is written Stanton wasn't too keen on Jews or Irish Catholics because of their religions' treatment of women. Context: women got the vote in NYS in 1919 and in the USA in 1920. NYS based suffragettes such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton devoted their energy to the abolition of slavery and then to women's suffrage, achieved 50 years after black male suffrage. Monuments in NYS to Anthony and Stanton for their life's work and work toward women's suffrage is appropriate. The first women to petition for the right to vote were women from the Town of Brownville in Jefferson County. I don't know their names.
29
It has taken a century even to get this monument to memorialize one of America's greatest historical struggles for equality, one that itself took many years to achieve. The 19th Amendment -- officially the "Susan B. Anthony Amendment," mind you -- was transformative and an enormous step forward for all women and all Americans. But without either of the women depicted, there is no way it could have come to pass. Sad to say, this is not so for Sojourner Truth's suffrage contributions, however significant.
Without Seneca Falls and the NAWSA there simply would be no 19th Amendment. Yet now this long-overdue recognition is derided for celebrating racism and not being inclusive enough, with a main criticism seeming to be that if all are not depicted then none should be depicted. I strongly agree that many individual points in this piece are valid. But I disagree that a timely piece of public memory is thereby negated.
Statues and public spaces are major issues of contention these days, so this is unsurprising. But this Progressive anger that a public, politically liberal act does not go far enough is precisely why I fear that my lifelong Democratic Party is headed for disaster in the upcoming 2020 elections. We are self-destructively requiring unachievable levels of rectitude from our own allies and colleagues, giving no credit when they do not live up to standards we set for them.
73
@Mike S.: I don't get any sense of "If all are not depicted, then none should be depicted." But, yes, a sense that there should some recognition that there were others in the movement.
Here in Boston there is a recent monument to Women of Boston: there are three, Abigail Adams, Lucy Stone, and Phillis Wheatley. Obviously more could have been selected, and others could have been selected, but these indicate the possibilities of an open category.
3
Mr. Staples-
How many of the NY City commission were women...and did they get to vote on this?
Thanks for a terrific article- I'll use it in my US History 11 class.
4
@R Mandl
The smartest kid in your class just wants the year to end.
5
From the website that created this sculpture: "We plan more statues to honor other valiant women as well as an extensive Women’s History Education Campaign to highlight the contributions of ALL women." There was never any intent to ignore women of color. They are being included in other ways. Stanton and Anthony are clearly, by any measure, the two most influential leaders of the Women's Suffrage Movement and deserve this statue.
62
Sojourner Truth (Belle Baumfree) should have a commemorative statue in her native New York considering her lifelong efforts for civil rights. And as a subject, she would make a great looking statue I believe.
4
Sad that in this day and age, women of color should be so blatantly ignored, especially when it comes to women's suffrage. You are right in calling out NYC for this, the supposed capital of liberals in the US (and I am a proud Liberal democrat from way back in the day). Whoever was on this committee really needed to do a simple Internet search to find out that there were plenty of African American women who also put their lives on the line to obtain the right to vote. Good job in calling them out.
11
@Sheila Whoever wrote this op-ed really needed to do a simple internet search to find that the people who raised the money for this monument are including women of color in other ways. When we start denying "facts," like the fact that Stanton and Anthony were the two most influential leaders of the women's suffrage movement without whom there would be no 19th Amendment, then we on the left are no better than a Trump press conference.
23
I had wondered why the women's suffrage movement was seen as white. Recently I read a biography of Harriet Tubman written by Kate Clifford Larson. The author explains what happened to the women's rights movement late in the 19th century that led to separate organizations of black women, including their involvement in suffrage. However,given what the Larson documents about Tubman's involvement in the women's suffrage movement, including her relationship with Susan B. Anthony and Lucretia Mott, she would have been a good black New York candidate for the NYC statue. I am sorry she was overlooked by Brent Staples among the many women he named who would be appropriate candidates for a more diverse representation.
8
It's appalling that in 2019 a committee charged with approving such a monument would be oblivious of both the considerable contributions of African-Americans, male and female, to the women's suffrage movement and the blatant racist beliefs of Stanton and Anthony, the latter of which, in my mind, tarnishes their otherwise outstanding contributions.
I assume the committee was oblivious; otherwise it's astonishing that the ccommittee could be so insensitive to its responsibility to present an honest and encompassing work.
45
Only tax paying white men voted to give women the right to vote. So, why no white men included?
Sometimes we should be thankful a compliment was paid toward a movement of great value, rather than criticize the compliment as not exactly what we wished it would be. Just say thank you.
17
This country does not know its history, most especially whites! No excuse for "oblivious," it is time for whites to investigate and learn American history, the complete, honest and sobering history.
15
@JMC - Oh, I have been taught history all of my life. I'm white therefore I am evil. And privileged.
Did I miss something?
13
I hope that this article changes the statues in place now to include women of color.
8
Everything should be viewed in the context of its time. If you removed all monuments of men who treated women as inferior, you'd have no monuments of men. We need many more monuments of women, white and black, and Native American (Pocahontas?). So get to it.
22
I take your point within the context of the past.
This is not the past. This is now and it’s not acceptable.
7
@BGallagher
It's not acceptable now, true. But neither can we re-write history to make it more palatable or politically correct. The only way to learn from history is to confront it forthrightly.
Remember Winston Smith's job in Orwell's "1984"? It was rewriting history.
12
@BGallagher So you agree with me that we should install more monuments of women, white, black, Native American, because this is "now." But do you also recommend we remove all monuments of men who were sexist as well as racist?
7
Nothing against these women's monuments, as history suggest they acted according to their belief as influenced by the prejudices of the day. But not having a true diversity here is a perpetuation of bias against minorities, especially of black women. If we could do better we should. Even the appearance of racism nowadays leaves us with an uncomfortable feeling we ought to recognize as imprudent...if not thoughtless... and dehumanizing.
9
This leaves me wondering if progressives need to argue among themselves while people opposed to the rights of women and African Americans and others sit back and gloat. I hope this isn't the last monument erected to honor women who strove to change this country--- and we need to honor Black women and Latina women and Native American women and Asian women and ...
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When intersectionality reigns supreme no one is sacred #nomoremonuments
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Amen!
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Most black women couldn't vote until 1964 and the Voting Rights Act, a law enacted by the bad old white man LBJ and those bad old white Democrats.
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@SF Black women weren't barred from voting prior to the Voting Rights Act, their ability to register was inhibited by various requirements such as poll tax or a literacy test. This was true for black men as well. The 1964 VRA outlawed the various means used by some states to discourage voter registration by - mostly - black Americans.
Sound familiar? We're there once again with voter ID laws and other barriers such as reducing voting times, early voting, and limiting the number of polling places to area that many rural voters - predominantly black or Native American - have difficulty in getting to. This is just a short list of the voter suppression efforts that have proliferated in the past decade.
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@SF. Actually, it was rejected for years by southern democrats. Republicans were responsible for the legislation and eventual passage.
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Uh, Southern Democrats opposed the VRA. It was Republicans who helped LBJ push it through.
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Should every Civil Rights monument include a woman? Should every monument to Cesar Chavez include Dolores Huerta? Should every Harvey Milk Boulevard be balanced with one for Rita Mae Brown. Monuments to any women at all are sadly underrepresented. Yes, our depictions of history can be better. But denying visibility to heroes of women's rights because the monuments aren't sufficiently diverse is yet another way to diminish women.
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I think the point is that the women represented by the statue may not have been the best representatives of their time.
We all know these women from our history classes. They were portrayed as bright shining beacons of progressive rights. Now, it seems they’ve got a fair amount of racism in them and we could have taken this opportunity to revise our views of the time and made stars out of women who seemed to have worked harder and more fair on the march to gender equality.
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@Mary "....denying visibility to heroes of women's rights because the monuments aren't sufficiently diverse..."
No one is arguing for denying visibility to these white women, or arguing for a one-for-one policy for statues. The argument is that when there are statues to commemorate great achievements, there needs to be representation from more than just the white people associated with the achievements.
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@BGallagher These woman are stars. Period. Suggesting anything less is the height of misogyny. There are, literally, countless men of history with troubling pasts and men today with troubling histories, none of which get the same reckoning regularly asked of Stanton and Anthony. Instead, we're asked to develop "nuance" and look at the "total picture" of the person. What Staples fails to provide is context. Stanton's "Sambo" comment and others were made in response to the overt misogyny of black men working for black male suffrage...which they did win, after betraying women of all colors.
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