What was Fayetteville's role in the fight for women's suffrage?

On Aug. 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified after decades of struggle, giving women the right to vote.

For Roberta Waddle, past president of the Fayetteville chapter of the National Organization for Women, it’s anything but ancient history.

“When my mother was born in 1912, her mother could not vote,” Waddle said. “It’s only within a couple of generations that women have gotten the right to vote.”

For local residents, the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage marks an opportunity to look at the progress that has been made since the amendment’s passage.

Some of those women say that while much progress on voting rights has been made in the past century, much work remains to be done.

“I feel women’s right to vote is still in jeopardy, not only women's rights but anyone who is a minority. We are still disenfranchised,” said Ethelyn Holden Baker, a retired Fayetteville teacher who has long been active in local issues, including voting rights. “Our environment still shows discrimination against women and particularly women of color.”

On Aug. 18, 1920, Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the 19th Amendment, ensuring its passage. On Aug. 26, the secretary of state proclaimed the amendment part of the Constitution.

Photos: Historic photos of women's rights activists

According to a Sept. 20, 1920, article in the Fayetteville Observer, a Cumberland County woman, Mrs. A. Bert Breece, became the first female in the state to register to vote.

"Mrs. A. Bert Breece has registered and will vote in the special election that will be held in (Flea Hill) township on Sept. 28 for special school taxes," the article read.

The passage followed decades of struggle. In 1848, the first women’s rights convention was held in Seneca Falls, New York, marking the beginning of the national women’s rights movement.

A day before Tennessee passed the measure, the North Carolina legislature failed to pass it. It wasn’t until 1971 that North Carolina ratified the amendment. Mississippi was the last state to do so, in 1984. By that time, it was a purely symbolic gesture.

An Aug. 6, 1920, story in the Fayetteville Observer quoted a legislator predicting the measure's failure.

"I have taken a poll of the members and if all stick who have written me, I look for a majority against ratification in the House and a tie vote in the Senate," the article quoted Rep. B.G. Crisp as saying.

Fayetteville historian Bruce Daws said that Fayetteville doesn’t appear to have been a focus of the suffrage movement, although he said the city had a “strong anti-suffrage sentiment."

“As compared to other places, we didn’t make the news too much here,” Daws said.

Daws said that even before suffrage, Fayetteville had a tradition of strong female leaders in business, education, the church and other areas.

Daws said a group of women was instrumental in saving the downtown Market House and converting it into a library after it had been designated for destruction in the early 20th century.

Shortly after the 19th Amendment’s passage, Daws said, Katherine Robinson Everett of Fayetteville became the city’s first woman lawyer and one of the first in the state. Everett died in 1992 at age 97 after a 70-year career.

Daws said that in those days, some women married older men, then inherited and ran their businesses after their husbands died.

“Women throughout Fayetteville history were involved in all sorts of things,” Daws said. “They weren’t relegated to the kitchen and having babies.”

The 19th Amendment's passage brought speculation as to how the change would affect the political landscape. An Aug. 31, 1920, Fayetteville Observer article was headlined, "Entrance of women into politics may drive out age old office holders." The story said "both Republican and Democratic nominees for county offices in some sections of the state are going to be hard pressed in the November election."

Patrick O’Neil, a history professor at Methodist University, also said Fayetteville and surrounding areas don’t appear to have been a center of suffrage activity.

O’Neil said that most of the pro-suffrage activity in North Carolina tended to be in the  western part of the state. That may have been because powerful people in areas with a bigger Black population, such as the eastern part of the state, believed that giving women the right to vote might lead to Black people also having more access to the ballot box.

“The reason it was stronger out west is because the suffragettes had a hard time trying to get women to vote while still denying Black people the right to vote,” O’Neil said. “They understood that opening the vote to women might also open the vote to Black women. Generally, the larger the Black population, the less likely that powerful people were going to want women’s suffrage.”

Citing the book “Gender and Jim Crow” by Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore, O’Neil said the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920 led to a high number of Black people attempting to get around the barriers that prevented them from voting, such as literacy tests.

A May 25, 1920, Fayetteville Observer article noted the anti-suffrage sentiment. "Anti-suffrage leaders reach Raleigh ready to wage fight against vote," read the headline on the article.

Waddle moved to Fayetteville with her husband in 1972 from Ohio. Although it had been more than 50 years since the passage of the 19th Amendment, Waddle said she encountered a barrier when she registered to vote here.

“I had to read the preamble to the Constitution,” Waddle said. “I was so naive I didn’t realize I was being given a literacy test.”

Waddle said the preamble had been printed out; she didn’t have to recite it from memory.

Waddle said while the 19th Amendment was a landmark, the battle for women’s rights and voting rights did not end with its passage. She pointed to the long-stalled passage of the Equal Rights Amendment as an example.

The Equal Rights Amendment, which would guarantee legal rights to all Americans regardless of gender, was introduced to Congress in 1923.

Its text reads, in full, "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification."

The measure was reintroduced in 1971 and approved by the House and Senate. It was submitted to the states, with the approval of 38 states needed for passage.

Facing opposition, the amendment did not get the required number of states by the 1982 deadline, although in recent years, enough states have approved it to push it to the 38-state mark. Still, the measure remains in legal limbo.

“We are still working on getting that one ratified,” Waddle said. “And that has occupied a good portion of my time over the past several years and decades.”

Baker agrees that work remains to be done on voting rights. And she said that for Black people especially, the 19th Amendment was not a slam-dunk guarantee of voting rights.

Baker, who gives her age as “mid-octogenarian,” said Black women like herself could not take voting rights for granted.

“As Black women, women of color, Hispanics, we did not have the right to vote until (the Civil Rights Act) in 1965,” Baker said. “Even now today, if you are a person of color, we’re still fighting for the same thing, the right to vote.”

Baker said she believes there is more work to be done getting equal pay for women and assuring women’s right to control their reproductive health decisions. She would like to see Aug. 26 declared a holiday marking women’s suffrage.

And Baker said she would like to see more women win elective office. Although half the population is female, a much smaller percentage of elected officials are female.

Of the 100 U.S. senators, for instance, 25 are women. In the U.S. House of Representatives, there are 101 women serving, about 23% of the total.

For Baker, that is a legacy of sexism.

“I think it's because we live in a patriarchal society. Our society is sexist,” Baker said. “From what I can see and hear, I think it’s the mentality of people thinking that men are more well-informed, the idea that women’s place is in the home.

“Even in 2016 when Hillary Clinton was nominated, I heard several women say, ‘I don’t like her.’ I’d say, ‘What about her skills and abilities?’ Some women have continued to believe that men are more capable.”

Still, local women have made strides getting elected in recent years and decades.

Beth Finch was elected the first female mayor of Fayetteville in 1975, serving until 1981. Finch, who died in 2012, remains the city’s only woman mayor.

In 1979, Evelyn Q. Parker assumed duties as Spring Lake’s first female mayor, serving two terms. In 2000, Ethel Clark was sworn in as Spring Lake’s first African-American woman mayor.

And in 2011, Jackie Warner won election as Hope Mills’ first woman mayor, a post she still holds. Kenjuana McCray, elected in 2019, is the town’s first female and first African-American mayor pro tem.

On the national level, Shirley Chisholm in 1972 became the first woman to run for the Democratic presidential nomination. In 1984, Geraldine Ferraro became the first woman nominated for vice president by a major party, and in 2016, Hillary Clinton became the first female presidential candidate nominated by a major party. All three lost.

Warner said she has been involved in politics most of her life, including high school and college offices. During a long career in education that included being principal of Douglas Byrd High School, Warner said she was named Cumberland County’s first female director of athletics when she was at South View High School in the early 1990s.

Before being elected Hope Mills mayor, Warner ran for the N.C. House of Representatives, losing to Rick Glazier.

“It didn't cross my mind at the time,” Warner said of her election as Hope Mills’ first female mayor. “It was brought to my attention during the campaign because somebody said, ‘We’ve never had a female mayor of Hope Mills.’”

Warner said her accomplishment was brought home when she looked at the portraits of past mayors on display in Hope Mills Town Hall. All are men.

Warner said one of the things that is most important to her is being a good role model as a female leader.

“I’m a strong supporter of women and women being involved in politics, but I think they have to take the role that they’re setting the pace for those who follow,” she said. “I want my granddaughters to know that I worked hard to set a good example.”

Baker expressed a similar sentiment, while stressing that women in the public sphere still have a way to go.

“I’m a great-grandmother and I have hope for my grandchildren and great-grandchildren and future generations,” Baker said. “Maybe one day, for future generations and generations throughout the world, it will be different.”

Staff writer Rodger Mullen can be reached at rmullen@fayobserver.com or 910-486-3561.