Du Bois and Women's Suffrage

Media: Book
Title: W.E.B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race

The quote that started me thinking (from a Du Bois speech):
“Every argument for woman suffrage is an argument for Negro suffrage.”


I must admit, I am a victim of the general American historic-amnesia. In my general life I forget, but was just reminded in Lewis’s book, that we were two decades into the twentieth century before the federal government accepted the fact that our founding principles include women’s right to vote. This provides such a clear example of the gulf between a beautiful ideal and the ugliness in human reality. Most of us would agree the ideal the United States was founded upon is beautiful: just, equal treatment for all individuals regardless of factors of race, gender, age etc. Yet just below the mythic, white-wigged surface is the history of those not white, male and well-off demanding the justice and equality promised yet withheld. Demands all too frequently met with ignorance, hate and violence. It makes you appreciate the Platonic duality: one, there is an Ideal realm where truth resides permanent and incorruptible vs. two, mundane reality of flesh and body, an imperfect corrupt version of that Ideal. I suppose as citizens we need to hold in mind the beautiful ideal, uncover the ugly reality, and make decisions to bring all that potential beauty closer to us all.