15th Amendment. Essay

5th Challenging the 15th Amendment caused a big division within the civil rights movement and two organizations emerged. In 1869, Stanton and Anthony formed the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) to work for the right to vote on the federal level and press for wider institutional changes. Another organization, the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) was founded by suffragists, Lucy Stone and Julia Ward Howe, who believed that once African American men were granted the right to vote that women would follow and wanted to secure the ballot by working on a state by state basis. During the next 20 years, both of these organizations reached out to women across the US and by the late 1880s, woman suffrage associations were everywhere, empowering women and creating a significant political movement

Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton formed a life long partnership and their talents complemented each other. Anthony was an energetic organizer that was good at scheduling raising funds for events. Stanton, married with seven children, did not have the time to deal with all the details but she was a brilliant writer and speaker and was the more impressive public figure in the beginning.

In 1872, Susan B. Anthony stepped out of Stanton’s shadow when she, along with her three sisters decided to register to vote in a national election. Although they voted, they were arrested days later and jailed. This experience with trying to vote, convinced her that she had to win the vote with legislation and not wait for the courts. She supported the effort that introduced an amendment in 1878 and every year until it finally passed 41 years later and this amendment became known as the Susan B. Anthony amendment.

Eventually these organizations merged in 1890 because they had more in common than