Chapter 14 DBQ Assessment
This question is based on the accompanying documents (1-8). The question is designed to test
your ability to work with historical documents. Some of the documents have been edited for the
purposes of this question. As you analyze the documents, take into account both the source of
each document and any point of view that may be presented in the document.
Historical Context:
Between 1865 and 1915 African-American leaders developed two contrasting attitudes toward woman
suffrage. Black men and women who supported woman suffrage did so in the hopes that black women's
right to vote would contribute to a larger agenda of race improvement. Similarly, black men and women
who did not care about woman suffrage usually believed other causes should be given priority in the
larger agenda of racial uplift.
Task:
Using information from the documents and your knowledge of United States history, answer the
questions that follow each document in Part A. Your answers to the questions will help you write the
short essay in Part B, in which you will be asked to:
Identify and explain reasons why some African Americans participated in the
woman suffrage movement.
Identify and explain reasons why some African Americans remained distant
from the woman suffrage movement.
Evaluate both sets of reasons.
Part A: Guided Reading Questions
Directions: Analyze the documents and answer the questions with short answers following each
document.
Document 1- Margaret Murray Washington was the wife of Booker T. Washington and the Dean of
Women at Tuskegee Institute, a school founded by her husband.
Suffrage.--Colored women, quite as much as colored men, realize that if there is ever to be
equal justice and fair play in the protection in the courts everywhere for all races, then there must
be an equal chance for all women as well as men to express their preference through their votes.
There are certain things so sure to come our way that time in arguing them is not well spent. It is
simply the cause of right which in the end always conquers, no matter how fierce the opposition.
Personally woman suffrage has never kept me awake at night, but I am sure before this country is
able to take its place amongst the great democratic nations of the earth it has got to come to the
place where it is willing to trust its citizens, black as well as white, women as well as men.
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--Excerpt from Margaret Murray Washington, "Club Work Among Negro Women," 1895
1. What reason did Margaret Murray Washington give for not actively pursuing the right to vote for
women? Make sure you cite evidence from the document or it will be marked wrong.
Evidence:
2. What did you think Washington meant when she wrote that woman suffrage had never kept her awake
at night? Make sure you cite evidence from the document or it will be marked wrong.
Evidence
Document 2 - As the woman suffrage movement gained momentum, Booker T. Washington issued the
following statement to the New York Times:
I am in favor of every measure that will give to woman, the opportunity to develop to the
highest possible extent, her moral, intellectual, and physical nature so that she may make her life
as useful to herself and to others as it is possible to make it. I do not, at the present moment, see
that this involves the privilege or the duty, as you choose to look upon it, of voting.
The influence of woman is already enormous in this country. She exerts, not merely in the
homes, but through the schools and in the press, a powerful and helpful influence upon affairs. It
is not clear to me that she would exercise any greater or more beneficent influence upon the
world than she now does, if the duty of taking an active part in politics were imposed upon her.
But this is a question concerning which, it seems to me, the women know better than men, and I
am willing to leave it to their deliberate judgment.
Excerpt from Booker T. Washington,"The Woman Suffrage Movement," New York Times, 20 Dec 1908
3. What three areas of society does Booker T. Washington cite for not actively supporting the woman
suffrage movement?
Document 3 - Washington Gladden, an influential white minister from Columbus, Ohio and an ally of
W. E. B. Du Bois, supported the inclusion of woman suffrage in Ohio's new state constitution. He used
the occasion to ask Booker T. Washington to state his position on woman suffrage. Washington replied:
My Dear Mr. Gladden:
I think you have expressed my own attitude very fully in your own letter. I have moved rather
slowly in this matter, but I think if you care to make any statement regarding my own position, it
should be to the effect that I am in favor of woman suffrage. I do not believe that any harm can be
done, and I think on the other hand that much good might be accomplished. While I take this
position I also feel that there are many other questions of far greater importance before the country
for immediate attention than this, but perhaps when we can get this question settled we will then be
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in a position to move on in the direction of settling some others which are more fundamental.
Booker T. Washington
Excerpt from a letter from Booker T. Washington to Washington Gladden,Tuskegee, Alabama, 30 July
1912
4. Cite the one sentence in the document that clearly shows why Washington supported woman
suffrage?
Document 4: W. E. B. Du Bois publicly embraced the cause of woman suffrage after he moved north in
1907.
The signs of awakening womanhood in the world to-day are legion. The best novelists are
women. Some of the keenest essayists and graceful writers of verse are women. Women are
among the greatest leaders of Social Reforms, and at last in England they are fighting, literally
fighting, for their political rights. Of course there are fools a plenty to tell them they don't need
the ballot and to feed them the ancient taffy about homes and babies.
Excerpt from W.E.B. Du Bois, "Women," The Horizon (December 1909)
5. Du Bois claimed “Of course there are fools a plenty to tell them they don't need the ballot and to feed
them the ancient taffy about homes and babies.” What does Du Bois mean by “ancient taffy about home
and babies”?
Document 5 - Du Bois published an article in The Crisis by Jean Milholland, mother of Inez
Milholland, who at that moment was emerging as a leading suffragist and champion of social reform.
Take, for instance, the suffrage, certainly the most vital, as well as the most important, of
interests of the New Woman Movement. In this reform alone we have a complete upsetting of
former social standards. We find the woman of fashion and wealth working side by side in all
harmony with a sister who earns her living by working in a factory or shop. Each is so
interested in procuring [obtaining] for herself, as well as for her sex, the right of political
freedom, that there is neither time nor inclination for the one to think or care about the social
standing of the other....
The colored women have done their share in this march for progress and the betterment of
their sex; but, as yet, their efforts seem to have been made principally within their own circle
and among their own race. It is time now, however, that they come forward and help share
with their white sisters their responsibilities, and seek to obtain for both recognition as citizens
possessed of political rights....
So it would seem a wise and progressive step for our colored women to look carefully into
the question of Suffrage. Surely its value as a useful weapon for bringing about not only her
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own enfranchisement, but also for securing to the Negro of the South the political freedom to
which he is justly entitled, must appeal to her.
-- Excerpt from Mrs. John E. Milholland, "Talks About Women," The Crisis (December 1910)
6. What did Jean Milholland mean when she believed the vote would be a useful weapon? There are two
answers – one regarding African American women and the other geographically – ensure you address
both or your answer will be marked wrong.
Document 6 - Adella Hunt Logan was a faculty member at Tuskegee Institute and wife of Warren
Logan, Washington's close friend and a Tuskegee official.
More and more colored women are studying public questions and civics. As they gain information
and have experience in their daily vocations and in their efforts for human betterment they are convinced
as many other women have long ago been convinced, that their efforts would be more telling if women
had the vote....
Adequate school facilities in city, village and plantation districts greatly concern the black mother.
But without a vote she has no voice in educational legislation, and no power to see that her children secure
their share of public-school funds....
They know, too, that officers, as a rule, recognize few obligations to voteless citizens....
They must wait while they besiege their legislature. Having no vote they need not be feared or
heeded....
Not only is the colored woman awake to reforms that may be hastened by good legislation and wise
administration, but where she has the ballot she is reported as using it for the uplift of society and for the
advancement of the state....Colorado has never had a better school than her women have made. Judge Ben
Lindsey is as popular with colored women voters as he is with white women voters. The juvenile court
over which he presides gives the boys a square deal regardless of color.
--Excerpt from Adella Hunt Logan, "Colored Women as Voters," The Crisis (September 1912)
7. Adella Hunt Logan citing two specific efforts that would better help society if black women had the
right to vote. What were these two specific efforts?
8. Adella Hunt Logan cited two specific results when African American women had the vote the result
was good legislation and wise administration. What were those two results?
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Document 7- Kelly Miller was an educator who had been born to a slave mother in 1863.
I am wholly unable to see wherein the experiment of woman suffrage promises any genuine
advantage to social well-being....
Woman is physically weaker than man and is incapable of competing with him in the stern
and strenuous activities of public and practical life. In the final analysis, politics is a game of
force, in which no weakling may expect to be assigned a conspicuous role.
As part of her equipment for motherhood, woman has been endowed with finer feelings and
a more highly emotional nature than man. She shows tender devotion and self sacrifice for those
close to her by ties of blood or bonds of endearment. But by the universal law of compensation,
she loses in extension what is gained in intensity. She lacks the sharp sense of public justice and
the common good, if they seem to run counter to her personal feeling and interest. She is far
superior to man in purely personal and private virtue, but is his inferior in public qualities and
character. Suffrage is not a natural right, like life and liberty....
It is alleged that Negro suffrage and woman suffrage rest on the same basis. But on close
analysis it is found that there is scarcely any common ground between them. The female sex does
not form a class separate and distinct from the male sex in the sense that the Negro forms a class
separate and distinct from the whites. Experience and reason both shows that no race is good
enough to govern another without that other's consent. On the other hand both experience and
reason demonstrate that the male seeks the welfare and happiness of the female even above his
own interest. The Negro cannot get justice or fair treatment without the suffrage. Woman can
make no such claim, for man accords her not only every privilege which he himself enjoys but
the additional privilege of protection....
-- Excerpt from Kelly Miller, "The Risk of Woman Suffrage,"The Crisis (November 1915)
9. What were the two reasons why Miller did not support woman suffrage?
Document 8 - In his publication The Crisis W. E. B. Du Bois wrote a rebuttal of Kelly Miller's
argument against woman suffrage.
If we turn to easily available statistics we find that instead of the women of this country or
of any other country being confined chiefly to childbearing they are as a matter of fact engaged
and engaged successfully in practically every pursuit in which men are engaged. The actual
work of the world today depends more largely upon women than upon men. Consequently this
man-ruled world faces an astonishing dilemma: either Woman the Worker is doing the world's
work successfully or not. If she is not doing it well why do we not take from her the necessity
of working? If she is doing it well why not treat her as a worker with a voice in the direction of
work?
The statement that woman is weaker than man is sheer rot: It is the same sort of thing that
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we hear about "darker races" and "lower classes." Difference, either physical or spiritual, does
not argue weakness or inferiority....
To say that men protect women with their votes is to overlook the flat testimony of the
facts....There was a day in the world when it was considered that by marriage a woman lost all
her individuality as a human soul and simply became a machine for making men. We have
outgrown that idea. A woman is just as much a thinking, feeling, acting person after marriage
as before.
--W.E.B. Du Bois, "Woman Suffrage," The Crisis (November 1915)
10. In what three ways did Du Bois rebut Miller's arguments opposing women suffrage?
Part B: Short Response
You must address the following question in your short response:
Who do you think has the better argument regarding the right of African American women to vote: W.
E. B. Du Bois or Booker T. Washington?
Directions: Write a well-organized short response that includes: a hook, thesis sentence, three
supporting sentences (that must cite documents used), and a conclusion. Use evidence from at least
three documents in the body of the paragraph. You must use in-text citations (Document 1, Document 2,
etc).
Structure:
Sentence One: Hook
Sentence Two: Thesis sentence
Sentence Three: 1st document supporting your thesis
Sentence Four: 2nd document supporting your thesis
Sentence Five: 3rd document supporting your thesis
Sentence Six: Conclusion
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