Women’s Fights For Civil Rights In Antebellum America And the Betrayal of Black Women

The Antebellum period was a very big transformative period in American History. The nation was expanding to the West, and at the same time many social movements were tacking place in different parts of the country. The abolitionist and the anti-slavery movement was the hot button topic at that time period but the female activists were also dominated and advanced civil rights for themselves. Female reformers like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony seized control of the feminist narrative of the 19th century and advanced the cause of women’s freedom with also the fight for universal civil rights for all American.

The Declaration of Sentiments, was drafted in upstate New York, was first of it’s kind groundbreaking manifesto that challenged women’s exclusion from American politics and social and economic rights. This Declaration of Sentiments from women’s reformer used the same language from the United States Declaration of Independence from the Great Britain. It declared, “We hold this truths to be self-evident: That all men and women are created equal…” Reformer, Stanton and her collaborator are all wanted equality under the law for owning property, access to education and participating in the United States politics such as voting and holding offices etc. They highly criticized a law in the Declaration, which looked at a married women from the eyes of United States law as “civilly dead”. Where the women looses all her property rights and even the wages that she earns after her marriage. This Declaration of Sentiments marked the beginning of organized women’s right movement where the suffering was the main point. This document basically demanded that women in the United States should be treated as full citizens and have the same rights as a free man.

The connection between the women’s movement ran by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the abolitionist movement was strong during the Antebellum America. Many women reformer including Santon, supported the fight to end slavery all over the United States. The big abolitionist leader and former slave, Frederick Douglass attended the Seneca Falls Convention. According to the document by the author Staples, the speech from Frederick Douglass, helped secure support for the resolution of women’s rights to vote.

But after the Civil War, the divide between blacks and white on women’s suffering started to form. The Fifteen Amendment, which granted black men to vote but excluded women. Female reformers Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony were not happy about that. According to the text by Stales, they used raciest language to argue that white women should be able to vote before black men. The racism in the women suffering movement increased as time went on. Black women often were not allowed in organization’s meeting and events. This alienated many members of women’s suffering movement who supported both racial and gender equality.

The women’s suffering and reform movement laid the ground work for many future fights for equality in the United Sates and other nations. Same time this also showed us the challenges while achieving unity. The Declaration of Sentiments, was a very big and bold step toward women’s right and abolitionist movement. But the betrayal of black women opened up the limits of it’s commitment to universal equality.