The Transformative Justice Coalition and the Voting Rights Alliance, in honor of Black History Month, are reviving the daily special series devoted to sharing the legacies and stories of the sheroes, heroes, and events in the fight for Black suffrage. This series was created in 2017 and added 4 NEW articles this year, and several newly revised, updated, or corrected ones. In addition to these daily newsletters all February long, this series also incorporates daily social media posts; an interactive calendar; and, website blog posts to spread the word broadly.

We encourage everyone to share this series to your networks and on social media under the hashtag #VRABlackHistory. You can also tweet us @TJC_DC to share your own facts.

Barbara Arnwine insisted that we could not have another year without publishing our Black History series! All month long, we have honored, recognized, and educated about a person, organization, or event, spanning over 5 centuries and told in chronological order, about those moments that forever changed the movement for African-American suffrage. The Transformative Justice Coalition thanks those who have been republishing our articles, on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, your websites, and even in the Tennessee Tribune. Over the 28 days of February 2022, these Black History emails were opened over 65,000 times, with over 600 individual clicks. You have responded to these emails with corrections, more information, asks to republish the series, and by expressing your thanks. We want to also extend our gratitude for your appreciation of the history this series shares.

This article is written by Caitlyn Cobb. All the sources are linked throughout the article with a full reference list at the end of the full article which can be read by clicking the button at the bottom of the page). This is an introductory summary page.

Today, February 16th, 2022, we honor Mary McLeod Bethune, who was "[o]ne of the 20th century’s most powerful and celebrated advocates for civil rights and suffrage" (Bennet, C. 2019).

Bethune turned her sights toward women’s suffrage in the early 1900s, when there was little role for African-American women, especially in the South. In 1912, she joined the Equal Suffrage League, an offshoot of the National Association of Colored Women. In an era when even African-American men couldn’t vote because of Jim Crow laws, Bethune watched as white-dominated voting rights and suffrage organizations marched and protested nationwide.

Following the 1920 passage of the 19th amendment, Bethune rode a bicycle door-to-door raising money to pay the 'poll tax,' a tax imposed by white lawmakers to suppress black voting. Because a literacy test was also required, she conducted night classes to teach reading. When 80 members of the Ku Klux Klan threatened to burn her school, Bethune held an all-night school-front vigil with a groundskeeper and some of her students. The Klan backed down, and Bethune led a procession of 100 African Americans to the polls to vote for the first time in the Daytona mayoral election.