The Reason Why the Colored American is not in the World's Columbian Exposition: The Afro-American's Contribution to Columbian Literature

Chicago: Ida B. Wells, 189

Ida B. Wells-Barnett letter to Lucile Atcherson, October 1, 1914

In October 1914, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, a journalist and leader in the early Civil Rights movement, wrote this letter to Lucile Atcherson, a leader in the Ohio women's suffrage movement and executive secretary for the Franklin County Woman Suffrage Associatino. Wells-Barnett, writing from Chicago, asks in the letter how she can help in the fight for suffrage following a request from Mrs. Jamison for Wells-Barnett's help in garnering enthusiasm for the movement from African American women. Wells-Barnett's suffrage club in Chicago could not spare money to fund her travel, so she requests money from Atcherson for the train. Wells-Barnett asks Atcherson to respond if the plan for the trip is satisfactory. The Franklin County Woman Suffrage Association was formed in 1912, after the Ohio Constitutional Convention elected to bring to a vote the question of removing the words "white male" from the state constitution with regard to voting rights. Headquartered in the Chamber of Commerce building in Columbus, Ohio, the organization put out regular publications, organized public speeches and meetings, distributed literature and held parades in support of the suffrage movement. Women's suffrage in Ohio was defeated in a special election in 1912 and again in 1914 and 1916 before a resolution narrowly passed in 1917 allowing municipal voting by women in Columbus. In 1920, the 19th Amendment passed, extending the vote to women and prohibiting state and federal government from denying suffrage on the basis of sex