Did Susan B. Anthony promise to cut off the arm rather than demand a vote “for the Negro and not for the woman”?

Claim:

Susan B. Anthony once said, “I will cut off this right arm of mine before I ever work for the Negro or demand the ballot and not for the woman.”

Judgement:

Ahead of the 2024 presidential election, a photo went viral viral show how women placed “I Voted” stickers on the grave of famed suffragist Susan B. Anthony past elections. As US Vice President Kamala Harris campaigned for president, many people online said the gesture had special meaning now that a black woman was running for office.

However, a number of posts attempted to counter that sentiment to emphasize a quote attributed to Anthony that indicated 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.

To inform on X referred to this alleged quote from Anthony: “I will cut off this right arm of mine before I ever work for the Negro or demand the ballot and not for the woman.”

(X-user @rahne_jones)

Anthony did indeed make that statement in 1866, after a meeting also attended by black abolitionist and activist Frederick Douglass. Her biographies vary depending on the exact wording, referencing her saying she would cut off her ‘arm’ or ‘hand’. Anthony was responding to a discussion about whether suffrage for black men or white women should be prioritized. A version of the quote has been quoted by her official biographer. We therefore consider this to be a correct attribution.

The quote in context

The website of the National Constitution Center, a museum in Washington, DC, focused on the U.S. Constitution, referred to her quote as follows:

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

At an 1866 meeting where Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony argued over whether to prioritize black male suffrage or white female suffrage, Anthony said, “I will cut off this right arm of mine before I will ever work or demand the ballot for the Negro and not the woman.”

Black women remained largely excluded from suffrage discussions, as evidenced by Sojourner Truth’s 1867 commentary on the issue: “There is great ado about the colored men obtaining their rights, but not a word about the colored women; and if colored men get their rights, and colored women, not theirs, the colored men will be masters of the women, and it will be as bad as before.

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

According to Part I of Harper’s ‘The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony’, Anthony made the comments in a private meeting after speaking at the Women’s Rights Convention, where she essentially emphasized the need to unite the causes of black people and women. This is Harper’s version of the encounter (emphasis ours):

A short time afterwards (the Women’s Rights Convention of 1866) Mrs Anthony, Mrs Stanton, Mr Phillips and Mr Tilton were in the Standard office discussing the work. Mr. Phillips argued that the time was right to remove the word “white” from the New York Constitution at the upcoming convention, but not to remove “male.” Mr. Tilton supported him, in direct contradiction to all that he had so warmly advocated only a few weeks before, and said that what the women had to do was to pressure the State with speeches and petitions to enfranchise the Negro , and to leave that to the women. which would come next, probably twenty years later, when another revision of the constitution would take place. Mrs. Stanton, completely overwhelmed by the eloquence of these two gifted men, acquiesced in all they said; but Miss Anthony, who could never be deviated from her standard by fallacies or curses, was very indignant, and declared that she would rather cut off her right hand than ask for the ballot for the black man and not for the woman. After Phillips left, she heard Tilton say to Mrs. Stanton, “What’s wrong with Susan?” She’s acting like a madwoman.’ Mrs. Stanton replied, “I can’t imagine that; I have never seen her so unreasonable and absolutely rude.”

We should note that the Susan B. Anthony Museum rejects the idea that Anthony favored suffrage for white women over suffrage for black people in general.misrepresentation.” It quotes another statement from Anthony in which she demands equal rights “for every man, black or white, and for every woman, black or white”:

It is not a matter of priority between women and black men. Neither claims priority on an equal rights platform. But the task of this association is to demand for every man, black or white, and for every woman, black or white, that they should at this time be given the right to vote and be admitted into the body politic with equal rights and privileges.

Anthony was part of an anti-slavery movement familyyet prioritized white women’s right to vote over that of black men, while black women had fully been so omitted of the debate. Just before Anthony made the statement about cutting off her hand, she gave a speech at the Women’s Rights Convention which emphasized uniting these causes into one (emphasis ours):

There is and can be but one true basis, namely: that taxation and representation should be inseparable; therefore our demand must now go beyond women; it must extend to the furthest limit of the principle of the “consent of the governed,” as the only competent or just government. That is why we want to broaden our women’s rights platform and make it what it once was in spirit: a human rights platform. As women we can no longer demand 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, negroes and women, since this must entail double the costs of time. energy and money. … I hope, therefore, that henceforth we may concentrate all our energies upon the practical application of our one great, distinctive, national idea—universal suffrage—that we shall unanimously adopt the resolution before us, and thus resolve ourselves into the American Equal Rights Association.

Although she founded the American Equal Rights Association with black activists like Douglass, there was constant tension within the group over its priorities. Anthony and Douglass had a decades-long friendship that was also full of disagreements. For starters, black women were ignored in AERA’s activism. according to to history professor Lisa Tetrault.

The AERA disbanded in 1869 over disagreements over whether to support the 15th Amendment, which gave black men the right to vote. Anthony was indeed among the suffragists who did not support the 15th Amendment.

In an 1868 speech To a group of black men, Anthony argued against the amendment, because if voting “is an inalienable right, it is as much the right of the black woman as of the white man. And you can’t ask it for any class of men. , without asking for all the women who are deprived of it.”

Sources