Cultural Change for the We the People Amendment
[third in a series]
Women had few legal rights in early U.S. history. Single women could serve as guardians, sue and be sued and act as executors of estates, but little else, including the right to vote. Married women, under the British laws of “coverture” which remained in place after the revolution, could not own property, control their own money, sign legal documents, or vote. In both instances, men represented women in these affairs. Despite Abigail Adams urging her husband and future President, John Adams, to “Remember the Ladies,” in establishing the new government, he responded, “We know better than to repeal our Masculine systems.”
Adams wasn’t the only prominent woman early on advocating for women's rights. The 1772 book by enslaved poet Phillis Wheatly challenged the narrative that blacks and women were inferior to men. “On the Equality of Sexes” by Judith Sargent Murray and “The Vindication of the Rights of Women” by Mary Wollstoncraft were other early writings affirming that women were human beings, not property, deserving of basic rights. A century later, Susan B. Anthony stated, “It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union. Suffragette Mary Livermore, noted: “Above the titles of wife and mother, which, although dear, are transitory and accidental, there is the title human being, which precedes and out-ranks every other.”
The Abolitionist Movement was the spark for the century-long Women’s Right Movement. Women began to speak out publicly against slavery despite discrimination in male-led abolitionist organizations. More radical abolitionists in the 1830s demanded the immediate end to slavery and women’s rights split with those simply calling for a more gradual end to slavery. Women gained valuable experience in organizing, speaking and writing. The refusal to seat and hear from Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, two staunch abolitionists and women’s rights advocates at the 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention in London, was a major factor in the eventual creation of a separate women’s rights movement.
A cultural shift toward women’s rights was underway.
The Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, NY in 1848 adopted a “Declaration of Sentiments,” based on the Declaration of Independence. It stated that “all men and women are created equal.” It called for women’s rights at the workplace, in education, within the church and the right to control property, money and to vote.
Redefining women’s role religiously was critically important. The Religious Society of Friends or Quakers historically accepted women as speakers and religious leaders. Women began speaking out for abolition within other religious settings, to demonstrate, in part, their belief in their right to publicly speak and act. Incredibly controversial, even within the women’s movement, was the publication of the “Women’s Bible,” a study of biblical texts critical of women’s subordination and desire of male domination while advocating for women's equality.
Educating and organizing were major cultural features of the movement. There were annual women’s rights conventions where information and inspiration was shared. Widely read early women’s rights newspapers like The Una and The Lil addressed not only suffrage and property issues, but the end the daily wearing of tight corsets and heavy skirts. In addition to other newspapers, hundreds of essays, articles, histories, biographies, letters, and pamphlets were widely produced and distributed over the following decades. Prominent women lecturers, some speaking more than 200 nights per year to educate and help fund the movement – including Stanton, Lucy Stone, Anna Dickinsen, and Sojourner Truth, the latter focusing on her experiences of sexism and racism. Prominent speakers leading up to passage of the 19th Amendment included Carrie Chapman Catt, Anna Howard Shaw, Ida B. Wells and Alice Paul.
A critical cultural and organizing component of the suffrage movement was the formation of organizations. The American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) and National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) formed about the same time. They differed over whether to support the proposed 15th Amendment: the more moderate, suffrage-focused and popular AWSA supported passage; the more expansive rights NWSA opposed it on the grounds that it only applied to men. The two groups merged two decades later to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA).
Racial segregation in meetings and parades of segments of NAWSA led to the formation of the National Association of Colored Women (NACW) in the early 1900’s, which advocated for gender and racial political, economic and social reforms. The Women’s Trade Union League and Equality League of Self-Supporting Women/Women’s Political Union of working women connected suffrage to working conditions, as well as to more publicly assertive and confrontational labor tactics. Radical suffragettes broke from the NAWSA to start the National Women’s Party (NWP) in 1917 that employed confrontational tactics.
Fiction, music, and artwork were essential in shaping public opinion, mobilizing support and advancing the cause of women's suffrage. Books of fiction and poetry weren’t just for entertainment, but were “aimed first at appropriating political language to show that women were able to participate in political debates” as well as to educate readers.
Suffrage music to inspire and mobilize at meetings and parades included “The March of the Women,” “Let Women Vote,” “Let Us All Speak our Minds If We Die for It” and other songs. Music was sometimes used to directly educate, such as singing songs to audiences when public speeches were banned.
Dramatizing the suffrage struggle were plays like Elizabeth Robins's "Votes for Women" and Cicely Hamilton and Christopher St. John's "How the Vote Was Won " In response to public and media attacks on the movement, the NAWSA organized press and art publicity committees. They hired artists and professional publicity managers. Photographs of suffragetts appeared in newspapers. The NWP made sure that their pickets and arrests were photographed and shared with the media.
The cultural work of the century-long suffrage movement inspired adherents, informed and persuaded the general public, neutralized opponents and balanced the movement’s political and legal work. It complemented, if not to some extent was integral to, the movement’s education, advocacy and organizing – such as petitioning; lobbying at the state level across the country for women to vote; organizing protests, disruptions and mass actions; engaging in illegal voting; arguing before the Supreme Court in Minor v. Happersett that the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the 14th Amendment permitted the vote to women; and finally protracted vigiling at the White House for a 19th Amendment that led to arrests and hunger strikes demanding they be treated as political prisoners. This was the tipping point for President Wilson, who called on Congress to pass the Amendment, which had originally been drafted by suffragette Alice Paul.
Lessons for Move to Amend
Here are five of the more significant cultural lessons for Move to Amend:
1. Similar to the Lessons from the Movement to Abolish Slavery, a starting point for any group seeking fundamental rights is the collective internalized belief that those rights are “inalienable,” meaning that they exist simply by virtue of being human. Women from the beginning in this country proclaimed that they were human beings, not property nor inferior to men; and that the government should grant them basic rights.
The internalization of a belief for a fundamental change is the essential first step toward achieving that transformative goal. It’s why the elite of any society to maintain power, short of the threat of state-sponsored violence, always seeks to diminish aspirations and expectations by claiming anything transformative is “unrealistic,” “radical” or “impractical;” and/or those who strive for systemic change are “egotistical,” “unpatriotic,” “unqualified,” and/or “dangerous.”
The power of billionaires and corporate entities in our country has arguably never been more dominant. It’s certainly much more evident. Business corporations increasingly control the quantity, quality, availability, and/or accessibility of our food, energy, housing, education, healthcare, air, water, land use, media platforms, judges, political candidates and elected officials.
The first step in democratizing the power of money in politics and corporate political and economic power is to outright reject their legitimacy. It’s to proclaim that we should be in charge of the conditions of our lives, communities, state, nation and the natural world – that we should possess the authority, power and necessary legal and constitutional rights.
In the case of Move to Amend supporters, it’s declaring that human rights preempt corporate rights and that the collective public, not five unelected and historically pro-corporate Supreme Court Justices, should be the deciders of the role of money in our political elections. These are the principles incorporated in the We the People Amendment.
2. Challenging the dominant cultural narrative that they are inferior to men, women asserted and exemplified equal rights by sharing stories in writings, speaking and through the arts. They also stepped into the controversial arena of the mainline Christian church by producing their own Bible that contested male domination over women.
Story-telling effectively humanizes conditions. Move to Amend”s Examples of Corporate Rule is a collection of stories describing “specific impacts of corporate power in a town, city, or county that denies the rights of local democracy.” It confronts the dominant corporate cultural narrative that corporations are politically impotent, harmless, and can be held accountable.
Understanding the historical power of the arts in changing culture, we’ve begun assembling examples of literature, music, films and poems on our newly-created Creative Resistance page. These various forms of expression “aim to expose the impact of big money in elections and corporate influence on our democratic processes” and to promote the We the People Amendment as part of wider effort for systemic democratic change. We must continue to collect and share both stories and all art forms in building awareness, acceptance and active support for our movement.
3. Successful movements develop their own “foundational” and other key documents detailing specific problems of the times, presenting a vision and/or specific demands for systemic change. They also represent a “call to action” that serves to culturally inspire and mass recruitment.
The Declaration of Sentiments was the foundational document in the women’s rights movement history, supported by scores of women’s rights advocates -- even though it largely ignored the perspectives of black women. It listed both grievances of women’s political and social oppression as well as demands. The other key document of the women’s movement was the 19th Amendment, written by suffragette Alice Paul
Move to Amend’s 2012 Why We Need a Democracy Movement may be the single closest “foundational” document equivalent to any movement’s “declaration,” “manifesto” or “call to action.” While developed by only a handful of Move to Amend leaders, it powerfully and eloquently describes our undemocratic Constitution that has legalized widespread oppression and shares Move Amend’s vision and work to build a democratic democracy movement. Unfortunately, it wasn't until recently easily accessible found our website and remains infrequently referenced in our current materials. Like the 19th Amendment, Move to Amend leaders were original drafters of the We the People Amendment – consistent with the conviction that any movement must take responsibility for defining its own reality and demands.
4. Many of the tactics of the cultural resistance work of the suffrage movement intentionally pushed the boundaries of “acceptable” actions of women at the time. Public speaking, vigiling, petitioning, and parading all challenged conventional norms of women’s role in society. The arrests for voting and imprisonment for vigiling for the 19th Amendment received massive public attention. These sacrifices and subjection to unjust treatment resulted over time in greater acceptance for their cause and pressure on the government to pass the 19th Amendment.. The violent treatment by the government toward imprisoned women spotlighted the hypocrisy and contradiction between the U.S. government engaged in a world war in Europe to protect “democracy” and the opposition giving women the right to vote.
Lobbying for the We the People Amendment has its place, as do letters, OpEds, petitioning, rallying, marching and other symbolic protests. At some point, nonviolent tactics need to escalate and be directed at public officials and a government that supposedly supports “democracy” but continues to resist taking action on behalf of fundamental democratic change. This includes We the People Amendment co-sponsors who rarely connect the issues and causes they care about to corporate constitutional rights in their words or actions. Move to Amend supporters must commit and follow through to become bolder in challenging elected officials and understand that it's going to take direct action, including organizing mass resistance and noncompliance -- the likes of which have already begun -- to a political system that has been captured by billionaires and corporate interests.
5. What we know today as the Women’s Suffrage Movement was in the beginning a much broader effort. Many anti-slavery activist women who began organizing for women’s rights understood that blacks and women were oppressed and needed to work together. Those who resisted working together organized for a broad range of women's rights, demanding civil, social, political and religious rights, as outlined, for example, in the Declaration of Sentiments. The right to vote was only one core demand of the Women's Rights Movement.
At the same time, there was inherent racism toward black women. Larger suffrage organizations excluded black women and ignored calls to integrate issues of race into their campaigns. The abolitionist and women’s movements split with the women's movement splitting over race. Both movements weakened and with decreased people power. It took several decades for suffragettes to reorganize with realistic demands narrowed to simply gaining the right to vote. Nevertheless, suffragetts recognized that voting rights needed to be "constitutionalized." Merely enacting a "Voting Rights for Women Act," could later be watered down or reversed if the political winds changed.
Racism and sexism (as well as other “isms”) remain powerful dividers among people seeking to work for fundamental, democratic change. The decades-long effort to achieve “campaign finance reform” before and following the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court decision was and continues to be mostly white and middle-class led. There are fewer than there used to be, but a majority of campaigns targeting corporate harms are organized by white- and male-led non-profit groups. The exceptions are environmentally racist campaigns focused on environmental injustices by corporate entities that targeted communities of color with little decision-making power. Concerning constitutional change, women for decades have promoted an Equal Rights Amendment while the NAACP have called for a constitutional right to vote.
Move to Amend is well aware that gaining legit self-governance goes far beyond reversing Citizens United and even passing the We the People Amendment. Historically oppressed groups have never experienced self-determination. Countering the claims that connecting historical issues of oppression with passing the We the People Amendment as being “impractical” or “unrealistic,” we believe they are interconnected – and that linking ideas, strategies and constituencies strengthens our power and solidarity and offsets external efforts to divide and conquer.
Move to Amend remains committed to helping build a wide and deep democracy movement that is authentically inclusive of communities that have been historically marginalized seeking to achieve authentic self-determination of all people -- for the very first time.
In solidarity
Greg Coleridge
National Co-Director
