Claim:

Susan B. Anthony once said, “I will cut off my right arm before I work or demand the ballot for the negro and not for the woman.”

Rating:

Ahead of the 2024 presidential election, a photo has surfaced viral showing how women had put “I voted” stickers on the grave of famous suffragette Susan B. Anthony in past elections. As US Vice President Kamala Harris campaigned for the presidency, many people online said the gesture had special meaning now that a black woman is running for the office.

However, a number of posts have attempted to counter this sentiment by Highlighting a quote attributed to Anthony indicating that she held racist views, including a desire to continue excluding black men from the right to vote, at least until that right was successfully secured for women.

Posts on X referenced to this purported quote from Anthony: “I will cut off this right arm of mine before I ever work or demand the vote for the negro and not for the woman.”

(X user @rahne_jones)

Anthony actually made this statement in 1866 after a meeting attended by black activist and abolitionist Frederick Douglass. Her biographies vary on the exact wording and refer to her saying that she would cut off either her “arm” or her “hand”. Anthony was responding to an argument over whether to prioritize voting for black men or white women. A version of the quote was quoted by her official biographer. As such, we consider this attribution to be correct.

The quote in context

The website of the National Constitution Center, a Washington, DC museum focused on the US Constitution, referenced her quote as follows:

(Seneca Falls Convention of 1848) was also notable for excluding black women and women from other minority populations. Exclusion was a prominent facet of the new suffrage movement, which sometimes seemed to view voting as a zero-sum game between oppressed populations.

In an 1866 meeting where Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony argued over whether to prioritize voting rights for black men or white women, Anthony said, “I will cut off this right arm of mine before I to work or to demand the vote for the negro and not the woman”.

Black women remained largely excluded from discussions of suffrage, as seen in Sojourner Truth’s 1867 commentary on the issue: “There is a great stir about black men getting their rights, but not a word about black women; and if the colored men get their rights, and the colored women not theirs, the colored men will rule over the women, and it will be as bad as before.”

The Susan B. Anthony National Museum says the quote came from a story written by Ida Husted Harper, a fellow suffragist and journalist, whom Anthony herself asked to be her biographer, according to Britannica. The museum describes how, in 1866, Anthony was approached privately by abolitionists Theodore Tilton and Wendell Phillips, who asked him to suspend his work on women’s suffrage and concentrate on getting the vote for men only. color. She said the above words angrily.

Conformable Volume I of Harper’s “The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony,” Anthony made the remarks in a private meeting after speaking at the Women’s Rights Convention, where he actually emphasized the need to unite the causes of black people and women. This is Harper’s version of the meeting (our emphasis):

Shortly afterwards (Women’s Rights Convention 1866) Miss Anthony, Mrs Stanton, Mr Phillips and Mr Tilton were in the Standard office discussing the paper. Mr. Phillips argued that the time was right to drop the word “white” from the New York constitution at the coming convention, but not to drop “man.” Mr. Tilton supported it, in direct contradiction to all that he had advocated so warmly only a few weeks before, and said that what women ought to do was to scour the state with speeches and petitions for negro suffrage, leaving – that of women. to come after, perhaps twenty years later, when another revision of the constitution takes place. Mrs. Stanton, quite overwhelmed by the eloquence of these two gifted men, accepted all they said; but Miss Anthony, who could never be swayed from her standard by any sophistry or levity, was very indignant, and declared that she would rather cut off her right hand than ask the vote for the colored man and not for the woman . After Phillips left, he heard Tilton say to Mrs. Stanton, “What ails Susan? He acts like he owns her.” Mrs. Stanton replied, “I can’t imagine; I have never seen her so unreasonable and absolutely rude.”

It should be noted that the Susan B. Anthony Museum calls the idea that Anthony favored voting for white women at the expense of enfranchisement for black people in general “distortion.” It quotes another statement by Anthony in which she calls for equal rights “for every man white or black and for every woman, white or black”:

It is not a matter of priority between black women and black men. Neither has a claim to priority on an Equal Rights platform. But the business of this association is to demand for every man white or black and for every woman, black or white, that they be at this time set free and admitted into the body politic with equal rights and privileges.

Anthony was part of an anti-slavery movement familybut it prioritized the voting rights of white women over those of black men, while black women were completely left out of the debate. Right before Anthony made the statement about cutting his hand, she gave a speaking to the Convention on the Rights of Women which emphasized the unification of these causes into one (our emphasis):

There is, there can be, only one true basis, namely: that taxation and representation must be inseparable; therefore our demand must now go beyond woman—must extend to the farthest limit of the principle of the “consent of the governed,” as the only authorized or just government. We therefore want to broaden our platform for women’s rights and make it in name what it was once in spirit, a platform for human rights. As women we can no longer claim for ourselves what we do not do for others, nor can we work in two separate movements to obtain the ballot for the two disenfranchised classes, the negroes and women, because to do so work we have to do double the cost of time, energy and money. … Therefore, that henceforth we may concentrate all our forces for the practical application of our one great, distinctive, national idea—universal suffrage—I hope we will unanimously adopt the resolution before us, thus resolving ourselves into the American Association for Equal rights.

Even though he founded the American Equal Rights Association with black activists like Douglass, there was constant tension within the group over his priorities. Anthony and Douglass had a decades-long friendship that was also fraught with disagreements. First, black women were ignored in AERA activism, conformable history teacher Lisa Tetrault.

The AIR disbanded in 1869 due to disagreements over support for the 15th Amendment, which gave black men the right to vote. Indeed, Anthony was among the suffragists who did not I support the 15th amendment.

In a 1868 speaking to a group of black men, Anthony argued against the amendment because if the vote “is an inalienable right, it is as much the right of the black woman as of the white. And you cannot ask it for any class of men. , without asking for it for all the women who are deprived of it”.

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