All while I was reading, I kept
thinking about the scene in “Iron Jawed Angels” when the African American
suffragist refused to march in the back of the parade. However, Alice Paul stated that many of the
other African American cohorts had agreed to this condition. I believe that this shows the great struggles
that many African American women were facing.
Not only were they segregated against based on their gender and their
race, but there was also a divide among African American suffragists. This divide among the African American
suffragists was just one more struggle that they had to overcome in their fight
for equality. Throughout the film we saw
how difficult it was for white women during the times. But, this scene was one of the only times
that African American women were even depicted in the film. I believe that this shows how much of a
struggle African American women faced while trying to gain suffrage, which was
carried over in their struggles to be viewed as the New Negro Woman.
Kim,
ReplyDeleteI kept making that same connection to the movie. The quote in this chapter that really made this connection to me was, "They not only inspired their mates to embrace a bourgeois production, but they inspire white Americans to recognize their fitness for inclusion in such national rhetoric's of progress" (51). This quote suggest that African American women ultimately inspired other white women to get involved with women's rights. Which then draws the question on why African American women would have to walk behind the White women in the movie "Iron Jawed Angels".