12 Amazing Women Who Led the Way on Suffrage, From the 1700s Through the 1970s

Born into slavery in 1797, Isabella Baumfree (who changed her name to Sojourner Truth) is one of the most important early fighters for suffrage and equality. Known for her speech, “Ain’t I A Woman?” delivered at the 1851 Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio, Truth’s early work calling attention to the intersection between race and gender paved the way for suffrage and civil rights. While she worked alongside prominent suffragists like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, Truth eventually broke with them over their refusal to support votes for Black people without women also having the right.

One of the most well-known leaders of the suffrage movement, Elizabeth Cady Stanton was among those responsible for calling the 1848 Seneca Falls convention — which brought together over 200 women and 40 men, and is widely considered the birthplace of women’s suffrage. Stanton was the primary writer of the convention's Declaration of Sentiments. However, along with other white suffragists at the time, including Lucretia Mott, Stanton was against the 15th Amendment granting voting rights to male citizens regardless of race, believing it would “degrade” white women for Black men to get the right to vote first.

Founder of the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society in 1833, Lucretia Mott was a lifelong fighter for equality. Mott came into women’s suffrage through her abolition work, which brought her to the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London in 1840, where she met Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The two then worked together to help organize the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention, and Mott continued to speak for women’s rights at annual conventions thereafter.

Amelia Bloomer was an editor, activist, dress-reform advocate, and early suffragist who was present at the 1848 Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention. In 1851, Bloomer introduced Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, who would go on as leaders and partners in the movement. (Indeed the meeting between the three is commemorated with a statue located in Seneca Falls.) Creator of the newspaper The Lily, Bloomer used her power to publish articles about women’s rights.

Along with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony became one of the best-known women's suffrage proponents of her time. A lecturer and activist, Anthony was arrested in 1872 for casting a “test vote” in Rochester, New York, in the presidential election, in an attempt to claim that the constitution already permitted women the right. Despite being found guilty in the court case United States v. Susan B. Anthony, she refused to pay her fine.

An early abolitionist and leader in women’s suffrage, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper was an author who advocated for suffrage through her writing. She is known for her famous speech, “We are all bound up together,” which she delivered in 1866 at the Eleventh National Women’s Rights Convention in New York City where she sat on the platform with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.

Speaking out against white suffragists, she said: “Talk of giving women the ballot-box? Go on. It is a normal school, and the white women of this country need it. While there exists this brutal element in society which tramples upon the feeble and treads down the weak, I tell you that if there is any class of people who need to be lifted out of their airy nothings and selfishness, it is the white women of America.”

Educator and activist, Mary McLeod Bethune dedicated her life to civil rights and suffrage. In 1912, she joined the Equal Suffrage League, which was an offshoot of the National Association of Colored Women. Following the passage of the 19th Amendment, Bethune turned her attention to encouraging Black women to vote and resisting voter suppression. She rode a bicycle door to door to raise money for a “poll tax,” and she fought back against voter literacy tests by offering night classes. Bethune also served as president of the National Association of Colored Women (NACW) and later became an advisor to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

The first Massachusetts woman to earn a college degree, Lucy Stone was a suffragist and abolitionist. Unlike many of her peers, Stone was in favor of the 15th Amendment, seeing this reform as in line with her abolitionist goals on the road to gaining voting rights for women. While Stanton and Anthony would form the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) seeking a constitutional amendment, Stone and others created the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) which favored a state-by-state strategy to suffrage. Stone was also known at the time for defying gender norms in her refusal to take her husband’s last name.

The first woman elected to the national board of the NAACP as field secretary, Daisy Lampkin was a committed advocate for racial and gender equality. In the early 1900s, Lampkin began hosting local suffragette meetings out of her home near Pittsburgh and continued organizing on behalf of African American women. In 1915, her leadership on women’s rights led her to become president of the Lucy Stone League, overseeing suffrage activity leading up to the ratification of the 19th Amendment.

A leader of the 1913 Women’s Suffrage Parade, Alice Paul brought radical roots to the movement that she picked up while studying in England, where she witnessed suffragettes engaging in civil disobedience that resulted in arrest. Following the Women’s Suffrage Parade, Paul went on to lead the National Woman's Party (NWP), which focused on a constitutional amendment and direct protest actions. In 1917, Paul and others were arrested while picketing the White House demanding President Woodrow Wilson's support for suffrage. She later staged a hunger strike in jail. Once the 19th Amendment was adopted, Paul continued working toward gender equality, writing the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in 1923, which is still not ratified to this day.

An investigative journalist, anti-lynching activist and one of the founders of the NAACP, Ida B. Wells was a champion for civil rights. Wells’ direct involvement with suffrage began with her founding the Alpha Suffrage Club in Chicago in 1913, through which she worked to involve more women of color in politics.

In March of that year, Wells attended the Women’s Suffrage Parade in Washington, DC. When white suffragettes, like parade leader Alice Paul, told Black women to march in the back of the procession to appease Southern delegates, Wells refused, saying: “Either I go with you or not at all. I am not taking this stand because I personally wish for recognition. I am doing it for the future benefit of my whole race.” Wells at first stepped aside but ran to the front once the parade began.

Mary Church Terrell was a barrier-breaking, lifelong fighter for gender and racial equality, who got her start as an activist in the anti-lynching movement. An active member of the National American Woman Suffrage Association and president of the National Association of Colored Women (NACW), Terrell saw the right to vote as essential to elevating the status of Black women and the race as a whole. She, along with other members of the National Woman’s Party (including Alice Paul and Lucy Burns) picketed the White House demanding passage of the 19th Amendment. Terrell saw her fight for suffrage as crucial, as a member of “the only group in this country that has two such huge obstacles to surmount ... both sex and race.”