An Instrument to Help Humanity

This chapter follows Kentucky suffragists as they waited to see if the Nineteenth Amendment would win ratification. They were optimistic, hosting “citizenship schools” throughout the summer of 1920 to prepare women to use their new rights. Both political parties were courting the new voters and white suffragists and African American women played key roles at both party conventions that summer. Tennessee's ratification of the amendment meant that women across the country would go to the polls that fall and vote on issues important to women, including the League of Nations.

Clark, Septima Poinsette

Septima Poinsetta Clark (1898–1987) is well-known for her citizenship schools, literacy training, voting and civil rights activism, and community, political, and social services.

The Birth of the Citizenship Schools: Entwining the Struggles for Literacy and Freedom

In a 1981 interview, civil rights leader Andrew Young commented, “If you look at the black elected officials and the people who are political leaders across the South now, it's full of people who had their first involvement in civil rights in the Citizenship Training Program.” Informally known as Citizenship Schools, this adult education program began in 1958 under the sponsorship of Tennessee's Highlander Folk School, which handed it over to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1961. By the time the project ended in 1970, approximately 2500 African Americans had taught these basic literacy and political education classes for tens of thousands of their neighbors. The program never had a high profile, but civil rights leaders and scholars assert that it helped to bring many people into the movement, cultivated grassroots leaders, and increased black participation in voting and other civic activities.