West Tennessee’s role in women's right to vote

The information in this story is based on previous coverage from The Jackson Sun, research from historians and authors and the books, “Why Can’t Mother Vote?: Joseph Hanover and the Unfinished Business of Democracy” and “The Perfect 36: Tennessee Delivers Woman Suffrage.”

For more than 70 years, people fought for women to have the right to vote, a constitutional right granted only to men.

After numerous failed attempts over the years to extend that right to women, the Nineteenth Amendment was passed by the legislature, sent to states for ratification, then depended on one state to grant the nation’s 27 million women a right to be heard on the ballot.

As 35 of the then-48 states said yes to ratification, nine rejected it, and three states – Vermont, Florida and Connecticut – wouldn’t consider it, leaving the fate of ratification and making it law to one state: Tennessee.  

It is the often-overlooked efforts of West Tennesseans that put pressure on legislators, who by a narrow vote, made Tennessee the last possible state to ratify.

Before the vote, Chester County’s Sue Shelton White picketed, organized and rallied for women's suffrage. During the debates, Memphis’ Rep. Joseph Hanover fought claims of bribery and slander to push for the passage of the amendment even after he was threatened and attacked. At the time of the votes, it was Gibson County’s representative Banks Turner who ensured a vote on the Nineteenth Amendment would happen on Aug. 18, 1920.

“West Tennessee is why it was ratified in Nashville,” said Paula Casey, an author who has dedicated more than 30 years to educating the public about Tennessee’s pivotal role in the Nineteenth Amendment’s ratification. 

As the nation prepares to celebrate the centennial of that moment, state historians say the nation owes it to Tennessee.

Sue Shelton White, born in Henderson of Chester County and orphaned by 14, was an equal rights activist, a state and national suffragist and the first female attorney in Jackson and Madison County and one of the first in the state.

She helped organize the Jackson Equal Suffrage League and Tennessee Women Suffrage Association and became Tennessee’s chairperson of the National Woman’s Party.

She helped craft and implement what is now the Social Security Act.

In 1919, she was arrested for burning a picture of President Woodrow Wilson – who failed to honor his pledge of extending voting rights to women – as she picketed at the White House. She was the only Tennessee suffragist to spend time in jail for suffrage work, according to the research of Jacque Hillman, president of the Sue Shelton White Memorial Committee, which funded and dedicated her sculpture in city hall.

Suffragists were the first to picket the White House for a political cause, according to Casey’s research.

She become instrumental in convincing lawmakers to make Tennessee the final state to ratify the 19th amendment in August 1920.

White wasn’t only vocal about suffrage in Washington or on a national level — it started locally.

The "Dixie Tour" of women's suffragists Maud Younger, Joy Young and Mrs. Howard Gould planned to come to Jackson to speak about women's right to vote in November 1917, but the Jackson mayor feared the speech would cause trouble.

White called the mayor and police chief, arguing that the women "were simply asking for the vote, and nothing about that could be called unpatriotic," according to Sue Shelton White scholarship committee member Jennifer Trently in previous Jackson Sun coverage.

The mayor allowed the lecture.

A statue of White in Jackson is one of a handful across the state honoring suffragists and their supporters.

“Sue Shelton White is our daughter from West Tennessee, but her accomplishments as a national leader of equal rights are shared by the people of the United States,” said Wanda Stanfill, sculptor of the Jackson statue. “This fearless woman worked tirelessly on behalf of all women to get the 19th Amendment ratified, and advocated equality for all people.” 

Hillman, the senior partner in The HillHelen Group LLC Publishing Co., and Casey, who published the book “The Perfect 36: Tennessee Delivers Woman Suffrage," discussed the state's role in passing the amendment at a March presentation and reiterated its importance last week during interviews.

They’ve researched the suffrage movement, the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment and the people involved in each through several books, especially “The Perfect 36: Tennessee Delivers Woman Suffrage.”

“The enfranchisement of more than 27 million women is more than a footnote in history,” Casey said.

For years, women such as White organized, marched, protested, petitioned and traveled across America rallying for their right to vote.

A battle of ideologies, bribes, vote trading

It was not a fight they won alone. Lobbyists, such as W.K. Kellogg and Company, supported the movement. People showed their support by wearing yellow roses, buttons and accessories. Men helped by advocating in the political world, including Wilson, who urged the passage. 

The movement was “the greatest nonviolent revolution in American history,” Casey said.

While there was support for suffrage, there was just as much opposition.

As Tennessee was the last possible state that could ratify, pro-suffrage and anti-suffrage groups applied pressure. Anti-suffragists, who wore red as a symbol of their opposition, filled the Hermitage Hotel, where the special session to ratify the amendment took place. There were anti-suffragist lobbyists present, including the Louisville and Nashville Railroad and Jack Daniel’s.

The Tennessee Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage formed a coalition of lawyers and state’s rights advocates, arguing the amendment violated the state constitution, as well as preachers and lobbyists. 

Speaker of the House of Representatives Seth Walker  reversed his position on the amendment back to his first position. He said America needed to “remain a white man’s country” and warned that the amendment would also extend to Black people, according to the book “Why Can’t Mother Vote?: Joseph Hanover and the Unfinished Business of Democracy." 

Even though 62 representatives pledged to vote for the amendment, that number dwindled to 47, making it not enough to ratify if it came down to a vote of the 96 representatives present.

Carrie Chapman Catt, president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, asked Memphis’ Joe Hanover — an Independent Party, first-time legislator who was one of two Jews in the evangelical-Christian dominated General Assembly — to lead the legislative fight to ratification. 

Hanover, a Polish emigrant whose family escaped Russian persecution and oppression, studied the Declaration of Independence and often asked why his mother couldn’t vote.

His life was threatened for supporting women's suffrage. He was attacked in the elevator of the Hermitage Hotel, where the session occurred, and called Jewish slurs.

The governor assigned him a police body guard for protection.

One reason the number of pledged yes votes decreased was because of bribes from lobbyists in the liquor, railroad and business industries, according to Hanover’s biography.

Hanover battled arguments that the ratification violated state’s rights, that ratification would demean women and pull them into politics, and that suffrage threatened the American family and legal system.

“A mother brings a child into this world but has no say afterward about the future of that child, his education or rearing,” Hanover countered.

Debates lasted 10 days.

On the day of the vote, legislators tried to table the matter rather than vote on it. 

In the past, that had worked. In 1878, the Anthony Amendment, named in honor of suffragist Susan B. Anthony, was introduced but sat in a committee for nine years until the Senate rejected it. 

In 1914, another constitutional amendment was rejected. In 1918, the proposed Nineteenth Amendment failed two times in the Senate despite Wilson’s urging.

By August 1920, the amendment had passed the House of Representatives, the Senate and the 35 states. The Tennessee Senate passed it 25-4 after a three-hour debate.

But, there would’ve never been a vote in the state House of Representatives had it not been for a Gibson County representative.

Speaker of the House Walker tried to table the vote. Gibson County’s Rep. Banks Turner was anti-suffragist; however, he voted against tabling it.

Walker walked to Turner and put his hand on Turner’s shoulder as they recounted the votes to table the amendment. Turner still voted to bring the amendment up for a vote.

 “If Turner had not changed his vote to bring the Nineteenth Amendment out of committee, there would have never been a vote in the first place,” Hillman said.

Before the vote, Turner had reportedly had a conversation with Tennessee Gov. A.H. Roberts and presidential candidate James Cox of Ohio, who pleaded to enfranchise women who would elect him. Roberts reportedly said Turner was the person to do it.

In the vote on the amendment, the 47 pledged yeses voted for approval; 47 other representatives voted against it. Hanover knew he was two votes short. With a red rose on, Harry Burn of East Tennessee voted for the passage although he voted to table the amendment twice. Turner, even with Walker glaring at him, voted yes for women's right to vote. 

Afterward, Walker changed his vote in support, making the vote 50-46 and a constitutional majority, Casey said. 

The United States’ enfrachisement happened after women's suffrage had been granted in 26 other countries, according to a timeline published in the New York Times on Aug. 19, 1920.

“We were the last state that could ratify,” Casey said. “That’s why I say, ‘All American women vote today because of Tennessee.”'

The suffragists knew that the right to vote needed to be enshrined in the constitution and required by all states, Casey said. Without it in the constitution, some states wouldn’t allow women's suffrage, and some states would take it away, she said.

“Morality of the South didn’t fail, which is what they said was going to happen,” Hillman said.

‘Laid ground for all women’s advancements’

“We would not be able to have accomplished the things we have in our lives without the suffragists’ victory,” Casey said. “Before women could vote and before the laws were changed to be nondiscriminatory, women couldn’t own property, didn’t have right to their children, didn’t have rights to many things.

“The ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment was significant because it was the first time rights for women were in the Constitution because it said ‘on account of sex.’ That laid the groundwork for all women’s advancements."

On Tuesday, the legislature plans to re-enact the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment in Nashville at 9:30 a.m., which will livestreamed. Also, there will be a livestreamed dedication to the Women's Suffrage Monument.

“If we hadn’t saved this history, we would not know this,” Hillman said.

“You have to understand where we’ve been so you know where you’re going and what your goals are going to be. I think if you understand there were people who fought so hard back then hopefully it will lead you, as a young person, to become an activist and leader.”

Women were jailed because they believed women should be in the constitution, Casey said.

“Three generations of women fought, persevered and persisted for us to have that right to vote, and we shouldn’t take it for granted."

In the words of Sue Shelton White: “We must remember the past, hold fast to the present and build for the future. If you stand in your accepted place today, it is because some woman had to fight yesterday. We should be ashamed to stand on ground won by women in the past without making an effort to honor them by winning a higher and wider field for the future. It is a debt we owe.”

Lasherica Thornton is The Jackson Sun's education reporter. Reach her at 731-343-9133 or by email atlthornton@jacksonsun.com. Follow her on Twitter: @LashericaT