They Marched Anyway.

They Marched Anyway.

Image: A group photo of the Howard University Delta Sigma Theta founders, 1913. Courtesy of the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority and Howard University.

Front Row: Winona Cargile Alexander, Madree Penn White, Wertie Blackwell Weaver, Vashti Turley Murphy, Ethel Cuff Black, Fredericka Chase Dodd
Middle Row: Pauline Orberdorfer Minor, Edna Brown Coleman, Edith Mott Young, Marguerite Young Alexander, Naomi Sewell Richardson
Last Row: Myra Davis Hemmings, Mamie Reddy Rose, Bertha Pitts Campbell, Florence Letcher Toms, Olive Jones, Jessie McGwire Dent, Jimmie Bugg Middleton, Ethel Carr Watson.
Not Pictured: Eliza Pearl Shippen, Osceola Macarthy Adams, Zephyr Chisom Carter.
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Excerpt:
"These young Black women who “marched anyway.” as the White suffragists movement leaders insulted them, belittled them, used every White woman supremacist tactic to scare them away and flat out refused to allow them to march with them in the fight for women's voting rights. They also had evidence of White suffragists’ hypocrisy through their personal experiences.

Let's be clear that Alice Paul did not do Black women any favors by “letting” them join a segregated procession. Rather, it was a disappointing blow that Paul chose the comfort of segregationists over the dignity of Black women.
This tension was especially palpable in the planning of the 1913 Suffrage Parade in Washington, D.C., which was embroiled in racial controversy and internal contradictions.

Alice Paul and other march organizers discouraged Black women from participating and even hoped for a low Black turnout to appease southern White suffragists. Some organizers were so intent on segregation that they planned to “strategically place” male suffrage league members in between Black and White women marchers in order to create more physical distance.

An article from The Crisis, the magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), noted how Black women’s desire to participate in the march had been contested by parade organizers:

The woman’s suffrage party had a hard time settling the status of Negroes in the Washington parade. At first Negro callers were received coolly at headquarters. Then, they were told to register, but found that the registry clerks were usually out. Finally, an order went out to segregate them in the parade, but telegrams and protests poured in and eventually the colored women marched according to their State and occupation without let or hindrance.

The same issue also included a report praising the women who persisted against these barriers and marched, saying, “They are to be congratulated that so many had the courage of their convictions and that they made such an admirable showing in the first great national parade.”

The account of what actually occurred during the march, and Black women’s responses, is varied. One well-known story surrounds Ida B. Wells, who—after unsuccessfully lobbying for integration of the official Illinois delegation—“jumped in” to take her place with the delegation halfway through the parade.

Other women chose to march in the back, or refused to participate altogether. For example, the first Black sorority at the historically Black college Howard University, Alpha Kappa Alpha (founded in 1908), had expressed interest in participating in the 1913 March. However, Paul apparently did not or could not assure their president, Nellie Quander, that they would not be met “with discrimination on account of race affiliation.”

It is not known whether or how many members of Alpha Kappa Alpha ended up marching, but Paul’s ambivalence certainly kept many Black women away."
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Excerpt from article source: https://www.nyhistory.org/.../girls-in-caps-and-gowns-the...
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Source: https://19thnews.org/.../08/black-sororities-in-suffrage/....