It wasn’t until the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that all African Americans were granted the full right to vote, but the fight began in the 1800s alongside the women’s suffrage movement.

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
An abolitionist and women’s suffrage leader who became one of the first Black writers to popularize African American protest poetry.

Ida B Wells-Barnett
Wells-Barnett was a prominent journalist, activist, and researcher, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In her lifetime, she battled sexism, racism, and violence. As a skilled writer, Wells-Barnett also used her skills as a journalist to shed light on the conditions of African Americans throughout the South.

(Isabella Bomfree) Sojourner Truth
Formerly enslaved, Sojourner Truth became an outspoken advocate for abolition, temperance, and civil and women’s rights in the 19th century. She challenged the notions of racial and gender inferiority through notable speeches and a lecture tour, including ‘Ain’t I a Woman?’ Her work to help formerly enslaved peoples find jobs and build new lives after the Civil War earned her an invitation to meet President Abraham Lincoln in 1864.

Mary Church Terrell
One of the first African American women to earn a college degree, Terrell helped found the National Association of Colored Women, was a key activist in the suffrage movement, and helped desegregate restaurants in D.C.

Daisy Elizabeth Adams Lampkin
Lampkin spent her life fighting for the right to vote and centered her work around many women’s organizations, including becoming the president of the Lucy Stone Woman Suffrage League in 1915.

Nannie Helen Burroughs
A prominent African American educator, church leader and suffragette, Burroughs also helped found the National Association of Colored Women and was a lead writer on injustices endured by the African American community.

Sarah Parker Remond
Born in 1824, Remond brought a legal case against a theater after being forced out when she refused to sit in segregated seats. She won the case and the theatre was ordered to stop segregated seating. She became a speaker for the American Anti-Slavery Society and fought for voting rights in the U.S. as well as abolition on an international scale.