Votes for Women

Episode Transcript

Krissa Corbett Cavouras Hello Borrowed listeners — it’s me, Krissa.

Adwoa Adusei And Adwoa!

Krissa Corbett Cavouras We’re hitting your feeds a little sooner than normal to bring you a bonus episode and to remind you to vote.

Adwoa Adusei That’s right. early voting is happening right now — and election day is four days away. we’ll put links in the show notes so you can check your polling location, for early voting or for election day voting, or where to drop your mail-in ballot.

Krissa Corbett Cavouras Not only is there a huge election at stake, which we don’t need to describe to you, this year’s vote is particularly special because it’s the 100th anniversary of women getting the right to vote in the United States.

Adwoa Adusei So, to honor that, we are going to feature two Brooklyn women activists: Sarah Smith Garnet, who died in 1911, nine years before seeing her fight for suffrage become a reality — and Councilmember Farrah Louis, for whom voting is an act of solidarity with the women in her family.

Krissa Corbett Cavouras You’re listening to a bonus episode of Borrowed. 

Adwoa Adusei Last week, we took a trip to Brooklyn’s Green-Wood cemetery with Rachel Walman, the director of education at Green-Wood.

Krissa Corbett Cavouras Just off the paved path, Rachel walked over to a group of headstones in the Smith family plot. She read off of two headstones.

Rachel Walman So Sarah Garnet's grave says: S J. S Garnet, Sister Minnie 

Virginia Marshall And her sisters is … ?

Rachel Walman A lot bigger and a lot more informative. Dr. Susan S. McKinney Steward, 1846 to 1918. Illustrious through faith as wife, mother, physician.

Krissa Corbett Cavouras Susan McKinney Steward, the sister with the largest headstone in the plot, was the first Black female doctor in New York State. Sarah (also known as Sister Minnie) has a much smaller, less descriptive grave stone. In fact, it was only recently discovered that she is buried at Green-Wood.

Rachel Walman I think many people have known that Sarah Garnet was an important suffragist, just that we didn't realize that that was that Sarah Garnet. We were focused so much on Susan McKinney Stewart, because as we teach with these with these stones, we like to teach by looking at the monuments in this monument is so informative. It's such a great primary source for students to attach to. And we just kind of weren't looking for other information in this lot.

Krissa Corbett Cavouras Both women were remarkable in their day, born to a prominent Black Brooklyn family — their father, Sylvanus Smith, was a land-owner in Weeksville, and that’s significant because it meant he could vote. At the time, men had to own $250 worth of property to qualify to vote in New York State, a law that disenfranchised most Black men at the time. And in fact, Weeksville, which is in present-day Crown Heights, was founded in large part to create the conditions in which Black families could own land and businesses, to empower a community by sticking together, economically and politically. We have a whole episode on Weeksville’s history — it’s called “Free Brooklyn” and you should definitely give it a listen.

Adwoa Adusei Here’s Rachel Walman describes the Smith family.

Rachel Walman I think they were just they just grew up with activism in their home. And Sarah was a teacher at the age of 14. I believe she was helping educate other kids in her in her school. She becomes the first principal, and a business owner. She owns a millinery shop where she runs Equal Justice League out of that shop before it gets too big. And then it moves to a YMCA.

Krissa Corbett Cavouras Sarah Garnet founded the Equal Suffrage League in the late 1880s, which was likely the first suffrage group founded entirely by and for Black women.

Rachel Walman She's also, I think, influential in trying to make bridges between white and Black suffragists. There's a lot of there are some records that white women spoke at her suffrage meetings and that and the Brooklyn Daily Eagle references both white and Black people attending her memorial. But also, I think there's some there's some evidence also that a lot of the work that the white women were doing at that time that she was involved with was not that impressive to the Black community. So she, you know, I think she was trying to make bridges happen. And I'm not sure that white people were doing the same or doing it as well.

Adwoa Adusei At the time, Black and white suffragists may have been fighting for the same right to vote, but weren't always on the same page about the motivations for that fight. According to Susan Goodier and Karen Pastorello, who wrote “Women Will Vote” about the fight for suffrage in New York state, Black women viewed their own suffrage “as a way to solve the problems the black race — and especially women — faced, including segregation, lynching, and other forms of systematic racism.” They point out that Black women had more agency within their families and communities than white women at the time. They were more likely to be working and more often thought of voting as a way to correct legal racial discrimination in this country for Black men and women, and not just as a means to advance the rights of women.

Krissa Corbett Cavouras And Sarah Garnet was not only an activist for women’s right to vote. She was a big supporter of the Niagra Movment, which became the present day NAACP. And, a year before her death, in her 80s, Sarah Garnet and her sister Susan McKinney Steward traveled to London for the first meeting of the Universal Races Congress.

Rachel Walman They both presented papers there and DuBois saw them speak. You know, she she's what her life kind of highlights is the importance of community and connection and organizing. 

Adwoa Adusei When Sarah Garnet died in 1911, DuBois spoke at her memorial. Ida B Wells sent a letter to be read on the occasion. Wells knew Garnet from their activism.

Rachel Walman Sarah was instrumental in organizing her big speech at Lyric Hall that helped raise all the money for her to go on and and do all all of her important journalism about lynchings.

Krissa Corbett Cavouras Many others spoke at her memorial. Green-Wood Cemetery has the program that was given out at her memorial service — it notes her as an educator, a club woman, a suffragist …

Rachel Walman I think one of the reasons why we may not know her name is because there are so many names to know that we should know all of them. But these women all worked together. They were part of a network.

Adwoa Adusei Brooklyn at the turn of the 20th century was really alive with women activists. Many of them are buried at Green-Wood cemetery.

Rachel Walman If they could all talk to each other … all these different intersecting communities that fought with each other and against each other who all find themselves here in death, it's just sort of fascinating to me.

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Krissa Corbett Cavouras Ss we celebrate the 100th year of women having the right to vote, we wanted to bring the conversation to present-day.

Adwoa Adusei I spoke with NYC Council Member Farah Louis, who represents the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Flatbush, East Flatbush, Midwood, Marine Park, Flatlands, and Kensington — about her path to politics. she started by telling me how her family votes when election day comes around.

Farah Louis My parents play a big role. I come from an immigrant household, pro union household. And my mom, my mom always inspired me to vote. She told me, I'm waiting for you at the polling site. I’m like, oh, it's eight o'clock, it's really late, I'm getting out of class. And she said, Yeah, I'll be waiting for you. They close at 9:00. We've got to get this done. And I was so happy that she actually pushed me to go and vote. And from there, we kind of created this whole pack where all the women in the family go to vote together or make sure that we call each other to make sure that we go and vote on Election Day. So it was very inspiring.

Adwoa Adusei Yeah, that sounds incredibly inspiring and galvanizing, making making it a familial thing, and this leads to the next question. Now, you do a lot of work with young women and girls, starting with your family. This year marks 100 years since women gained the right to vote in this country with the ratification of the 19th Amendment. What do you think about that when you look back at this history and what do you think in terms of work that continues to need to be done to advance women's suffrage? Like, what should we be doing?

Farah Louis Well, the 19th Amendment was a landmark amendment. And without it, we would definitely not have a seat at the table. But the fight for women's suffrage continues, in my opinion, especially because the black women also felt like they didn’t have a seat at the table during this time, many years ago. So as the woman's caucus co-chair, you know, I'm committed as well as my co-chair to amplify the voices of women and representing them. We have so many things that we need to bring in the forefront for women where it comes when it comes to like equal pay, reproductive rights, Black maternal mortality and morbidity. There's so many different issues that we have going on and we need to just make sure that we're always amplifying the voices of the women and empowering them to go out and vote and to run for office. If it wasn't for that amendment, we wouldn't see women actually in leadership roles in government. 

Adwoa Adusei In your Brooklyn district, District 45, what are your concerns about access to the vote? 

Farah Louis My district is predominantly Black and immigrant. And right now it's our political climate is a xenophobic and racist political climate. But the buck stops with us. We definitely shouldn't retreat. It's never a fair turnout. And like I mentioned earlier, even my mom went through the language barriers, not having poll site workers that speak other languages, giving giving constituents the wrong information for the poll sites or changing that information right before. And then they have to go another mile or zero point five miles to get to a polling site. We've seen folks discouraged on Election Day and we have to do everything we can to fight back against that. 

Adwoa Adusei This year, BPL has seventeen locations that will be polling sites on Election Day. And historically, libraries have played a big role across the country in terms of acting as polling sites. Why do you think is this this is important?

Farah Louis Our public libraries are definitely our trusted neighborhood resource and it's accessible to all people of the usage of our branches is definitely natural because people feel comfortable at our local libraries. And for us and our district, our libraries is the hub for everything, whether it be a voting site, whether it be a program, a neighborhood program, whether it be completing the census. We've utilized our libraries to put people together to get the resources that they need. You know, if we want to see change in this country, if we don't want to see another Brianna Taylor or George Floyd or our our reproductive rights compromised, we need to get out there. We need to vote. So everything's on the table.

Adwoa Adusei Council Member Farrah Louis, thank you so much for your time and for answering our questions today.

Farah Louis Thank you, Adwoa.

[Music]

Krissa Corbett Cavouras Borrowed is brought to you by Brooklyn Public Library and is hosted by me, Krissa Corbett Cavouras, and Adwoa Adusei. You can find a transcript of this episode at our website, B-K-L-Y-N Library [dot] org [slash] podcasts.

Adwoa Adusei Borrowed is produced by Virginia Marshall and written by myself and Virginia Marshall, with help from Fritzi Bodenheimer, Jennifer Proffitt, Meryl Friedman and Robin Lester Kenton. Our music composer is Billy Libby.  

Krissa Corbett Cavouras You can find information about polling places, including several at Brooklyn Public Library on our website. We’ve also put a link there to a special tour happening at Green-Wood cemetery on election day — a tour that will include Sarah Smith Garnet as one of the activists who made women’s suffrage a reality.

Adwoa Adusei So, after you vote, pay a visit to Green-Wood cemetery! Borrowed will be back in your ears soon.