page_title: Alpha Suffrage Club
section_title: White suffrage conflict
hierarchical_section_title: Alpha Suffrage Club / Historical context / White suffrage conflict
caption_attribution_description: English: Voters at the voting booths in 1945 CREDIT: "Voters at the Voting Booths." NAACP Collection, The African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship, Library of Congress. Americans Observed the First Uniform Election Day
context_page_description: The Alpha Suffrage Club was the first and most important black female suffrage club in Chicago and one of the most important in Illinois. It was founded on January 30, 1913 by Ida B. Wells with the help of her white colleagues Belle Squire and Virginia Brooks. The Club aimed to give a voice to African American women who had been excluded from national suffrage organizations such as the National American Women Suffrage Association. Its stated purpose was to inform black women of their civic responsibility and to organize them to help elect candidates who would best serve the interests of African Americans in Chicago.
  The club was formed after women in Chicago were granted the right to vote in the year 1910. It fought against the white Chicago women who were trying to ban African Americans from voting altogether. They also wanted to promote the election of African Americans to public office. As Wells stated in her autobiography, "we could use our vote for the advantage of ourselves and our race."
context_section_description: In the early years of the women's suffrage movement, abolition was something that brought many people together. Abolition and women's rights supporters worked together from the conclusion of the Civil War until the late 1800s. Frederick Douglass even used the famous abolitionist newspaper, the North Star, to advertise the 1848 Seneca Falls suffrage meeting. The American Equal Rights Association was formed in 1866 to win suffrage for all. This organization supported both women's and African American's voting rights at first, but with the passing of the 14th and 15th Amendments, there was a change in the group dynamics. Instead of this one organization, in 1868 there were two groups that had differing opinions about black men being given the right to vote. Black women were members of both groups for a time and then racism became a tool that many suffrage groups channeled.
  As time went on, the main goal of the movement became the right to vote and in order to gain broad support throughout the United States, they used black voting rights as a type of scapegoat. Southern women were especially opposed to these Black suffragettes and still held the belief that African Americans were inferior. Ida B. Wells, one of the founders of the Alpha Suffrage Club, was told she could only participate in the black section of the Woman Suffrage Parade because she was an African American woman. Despite the opposition, Wells still joined the white women marching and fighting for suffrage that day.
  About a year later Wells founded a suffrage club that supported all women in the pursuit of the right to vote. Her organization advocated suffrage for all women, no matter their race or class, which was something that other popular woman suffrage groups did not push for at that time. The movement became divided, with one part of the movement supporting women's suffrage for all women and the other side only supporting white women suffrage. Women like Ida B. Wells felt that not granting all people the right to vote would hurt the overall cause and therefore the Alpha Suffrage Club supported all people's suffrage. This group distinction caused much conflict for ultimately no reason. The 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920 and granted suffrage to all women no matter their race, economic standing, or class. So although there was racism in the early fight for women's vote, the law produced was not discriminatory.
caption: African Americans voting in 1945
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