Explores the lesser-known efforts of such black suffrage activists as NAACP founder Mary Church Terrell, education advocate Anna Julia Cooper and journalist Ida B. Wells in helping African American women obtain the same rights as their white feminist counterparts. Simultaneous eBook. - (Baker & Taylor)

Describes a history of the role of African American women as a significant force in the suffrage movement and their efforts to be accepted as equal partners by their fellow activists. - (Baker & Taylor)

For African American women, the fight for the right to vote was only one battle.

This Coretta Scott King Author Honor book tells the important, overlooked story of black women as a force in the suffrage movement--when fellow suffragists did not accept them as equal partners in the struggle.

Susan B. Anthony. Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Alice Paul. The Women's Rights Convention at Seneca Falls. The 1913 Women's March in D.C. When the epic story of the suffrage movement in the United States is told, the most familiar leaders, speakers at meetings, and participants in marches written about or pictured are generally white.

That's not the real story.

Women of color, especially African American women, were fighting for their right to vote and to be treated as full, equal citizens of the United States. Their battlefront wasn't just about gender. African American women had to deal with white abolitionist-suffragists who drew the line at sharing power with their black sisters. They had to overcome deep, exclusionary racial prejudices that were rife in the American suffrage movement. And they had to maintain their dignity--and safety--in a society that tried to keep them in its bottom ranks.

Lifting as We Climb is the empowering story of African American women who refused to accept all this. Women in black church groups, black female sororities, black women's improvement societies and social clubs. Women who formed their own black suffrage associations when white-dominated national suffrage groups rejected them. Women like Mary Church Terrell, a founder of the National Association of Colored Women and of the NAACP; or educator-activist Anna Julia Cooper who championed women getting the vote and a college education; or the crusading journalist Ida B. Wells, a leader in both the suffrage and anti-lynching movements.

Author Evette Dionne, a feminist culture writer and the editor-in-chief of Bitch Media, has uncovered an extraordinary and underrepresented history of black women. In her powerful book, she draws an important historical line from abolition to suffrage to civil rights to contemporary young activists--filling in the blanks of the American suffrage story.

"Dionne provides a detailed and comprehensive look at the overlooked roles African American women played in the efforts to end slavery and then to secure the right to vote for women." --Kirkus Reviews, starred review - (Penguin Putnam)

Evette Dionne is a black feminist writer and the editor-in-chief of Bitch Media. Her writings about race, gender, and culture have appeared in Teen Vogue, Refinery29, Bustle, Self, The Guardian, and The New York Times, among other publications. Before becoming a writer and editor, Dionne taught eighth graders about social justice and tenth graders about world literature. Visit her at www.evettedionne.com. - (Penguin Putnam)

Booklist Reviews

*Starred Review* In 1904, the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs (NACWC) established the motto lifting as we climb. Though the NACWC's goals included suffrage for Black women, the vote was just one piece of the puzzle; they saw it as a tool they could use to improve the lives of all African Americans. It's from this movement that Dionne, a culture writer, editor, and former teacher, takes the title of her book, which traces Black women's fight for voting rights in America. Dionne demonstrates how the the suffrage movement was rooted in the abolitionist movement, profiling Black women who were crucial to the fight for the vote (both familiar and lesser-known figures are represented) and showing how the shock waves from these movements have reverberated through the Jim Crow South and present-day. Throughout, Dionne highlights how the stories of Black women have routinely been systemically buried. The white women who led the suffrage movement did not treat them as equals and were willing to deny or overlook the rights of Black women if it meant a quicker road to their own goals. And though many movements and stories were closely intertwined, few of these narratives are taught in history classrooms today. Dionne pulls back the veil on these stories, offering up an essential work for middle graders that helps to fill a gaping void. Grades 5-8. Copyright 2020 Booklist Reviews.

Horn Book Guide Reviews

In her preface, Not the History You Learned in School, Dionne sets the historical scene with the 2016 presidential campaign. Having observed multiple people placing their I Voted stickers at the gravesite of Susan B. Anthony, Dionne points out that Black women also fought, were beaten or jailed, and faced serious, sometimes violent, opposition to gain the right to vote -- even after 1920. Where were their stickers? Beginning from the suffrage movement in the 1830s, with its members squabbling over whether the voting rights of Black men or (in particular, white) women should take precedence, Black women have always found themselves in precarious positions. Dionne's meticulous research provides insight into how Black women maneuvered this intersectionality, addressing their specific needs as to both women's rights and improving the lives of African Americans. Throughout the arduous fight for the end of slavery and for women's suffrage, there were Black women who rose to prominence and spoke out against the injustices -- as much as possible, as they were also under intense scrutiny to become respectable wives and mothers, to never present themselves in a manner that could be deemed too loud, too bold, too aggressive, or too angry. Dionne chronicles and champions each heroine who pushed through prejudice to contribute to the overall suffrage movement, as well as their contributions to their immediate communities. Continuing through the present day, the author ends with a cautionary note of the work still to be done to ensure the right to vote for all American citizens, and a reminder: preserving the right to vote still matters -- forever and always. Archival photographs appear throughout; interspersed sidebars fill the pages (almost distractingly so) with extended biographies of suffragists and key historical moments. See also How Women Won the Vote and Finish the Fight, reviewed on pages 111 and 113. Copyright 2021 Horn Book Guide Reviews.

Horn Book Magazine Reviews

In her preface, "Not the History You Learned in School," Dionne sets the historical scene with the 2016 presidential campaign. Having observed multiple people placing their "I Voted" stickers at the gravesite of Susan B. Anthony, Dionne points out that "Black women also fought, were beaten or jailed, and faced serious, sometimes violent, opposition to gain the right to vote -- even after 1920. Where were their stickers?" Beginning from the suffrage movement in the 1830s, with its members squabbling over whether the voting rights of Black men or (in particular, white) women should take precedence, Black women have always found themselves in precarious positions. Dionne's meticulous research provides insight into how Black women maneuvered this intersectionality, addressing their specific needs as to both women's rights and "improving the lives of African Americans." Throughout the arduous fight for the end of slavery and for women's suffrage, there were Black women who rose to prominence and spoke out against the injustices -- as much as possible, as they were also under intense scrutiny to become "respectable" wives and mothers, to never present themselves in a manner that could be deemed "too loud, too bold, too aggressive, or too angry." Dionne chronicles and champions each heroine who pushed through prejudice to contribute to the overall suffrage movement, as well as their contributions to their immediate communities. Continuing through the present day, the author ends with a cautionary note of the work still to be done to ensure the right to vote for all American citizens, and a reminder: "preserving the right to vote still matters -- forever and always." Archival photographs appear throughout; interspersed sidebars fill the pages (almost distractingly so) with extended biographies of suffragists and key historical moments. See also How Women Won the Vote and Finish the Fight, reviewed on pages 111 and 113. Eboni Njoku September/October 2020 p.115 Copyright 2020 Horn Book Magazine Reviews.

Kirkus Reviews

African American women had to battle both sexism and racism in their quest for the right to vote. The roots of the historical women's suffrage movement can be found in efforts to end slavery in the United States. However, small numbers of black female abolitionists participated, and as the activism expanded to women's rights, African Americans were mostly excluded. Dionne provides a detailed and comprehensive look at the overlooked roles African American women played in the efforts to end slavery and then to secure the right to vote for women, arguing that black women worked consistently for their communities in all areas. The ways in which the black women's club movement, the anti-lynching movement, and other activism combined to press for full citizenship are on display. "Getting the right to vote wasn't the end goal; improving the lives of African Americans was." There are familiar names such as Ida B. Wells and Mary McLeod Bethune, but there are also many not as well known. Dionne is clear about the fact that even as women prepared to march for the 19th Amendment, whi te leaders kept black suffragists separate. Amply illustrated with archival drawings and photographs and supported with contextualizing sidebars, the narrative concludes with a discussion of the Voting Rights Act and contemporary efforts by African Americans to fight against voter suppression. A lively and critical addition as the United States commemorates the centennial of women's suffrage. (sources, further reading, index) (Nonfiction. 10-16) Copyright Kirkus 2020 Kirkus/BPI Communications. All rights reserved.

School Library Journal Reviews

Gr 5–7—Dionne clearly presents the difficult battle for women's suffrage that African American women endured before Congress passed the Nineteenth Amendment on June 4, 1919. The trek to the ballot box for African American women was a difficult one, with many grim realities to overcome before and after the amendment's ratification. Beginning with the start of the abolitionist movement in the 1830s and continuing to the present day, Dionne demonstrates why women anti-slavery advocates (African American and white) felt the need to band together to fight the sexism of the national abolitionist establishment. For instance, at the organizational meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society, African American women were not invited to attend. The select white women in attendance were expected to observe the proceedings in silence. African American women fought their marginalization in the anti-slavery and later female suffrage movements and made their voices heard. The identification of African American women activists and the parts they played in American history is the strength of Dionne's book. So many of these women played pivotal roles in the passage of fundamental civil rights legislation, yet remain unidentified in mainstream accounts. VERDICT A must-purchase for all secondary school libraries. Readers who liked Fighting Chance: The Struggle Over Woman Suffrage and Black Suffrage In Reconstruction America by Faye E. Dudden and Sisters in the Struggle: African American Women in the Civil Rights-Black Power Movement edited by Bettye Collier-Thomas will particularly like Dionne's work.—Susan Catlett, Green Run High School, Virginia Beach