Texas Women during the Suffrage Movement

Text of a speech given by Barbara C. Jordan at the National Archives in Washington D.C., about women's suffrage and the black women behind the movement.

A letter from Texas Representative, C.B Randell to suffragist Erminia T. Folsom expressing his concerns about giving women, especially black women, the right to vote.

An article on Minnie Fisher and her efforts in Texas for Women's Suffrage.

Woman Suffrage and the events and people that existed in Texas.

Minnie Fisher Cunningham

"Houston's Campaign for the Vote 1917-1918" by Janelle D. Scott.

“With high hopes and enthusiasm women stepped forth into a world in which they were CITIZENS AT LAST!” — Jane Y. McCallum, “Activities of Women in Texas Politics, II”

White Texas women petitioned for a suffrage amendment to the state constitution in 1868, but racism prevented most of them from working with African American suffragists as the movement grew. When Texas women won the right to vote in 1918, prejudice—in the form of poll taxes, white primary laws, and the Ku Klux Klan—disfranchised black women. “That just hurt our hearts real bad,” Kitty Simmons recalled when a Kingsville official said her race disqualified her from voting.

History has forgotten Willie Rose Bartles Smith (1872-1957) and Ada Burkes (1887-1962). No markers memorialize their attempts to make history in 1920.

BRACKENRIDGE, MARY ELEANOR (1837–1924). Mary Eleanor Brackenridge, clubwoman and advocate of women's rights, daughter of John Adams and Isabella Helena (McCulloch) Brackenridge, was born in Warwick County, Indiana, on March 7, 1837. George W. Brackenridge was her brother. She spent her childhood in Indiana and, upon graduating from Anderson Female Seminary in New Albany in 1855, joined her family, who had moved to Jackson County, Texas. She remained in Jackson County until 1866, when she and her mother went to San Antonio to live with George. John A. Brackenridge had died in 1862.