Full Equality for Native American Women
In a proclamation issued by President Joseph Biden on August 25, 2023, he wrote, “On Women’s Equality Day (August 26), we honor the pioneering suffragists who persisted through decades of struggle to finally win American women the right to vote, and we celebrate the advocates and everyday heroes who have continued the long march for equality ever since.” (For the complete text of the Proclamation, go to tinyurl.com/5d3yt5hu.)
The U.S. Congress designated August 26 as “Women’s Equality Day” in 1973 to commemorate the August 26, 1920, passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, granting women the right to vote. This was the successful culmination of a massive, peaceful civil rights movement sustained over seven decades by determined women fighting against fierce and sometimes brutal resistance.
The women’s suffrage movement had its formal beginnings in 1848 at the world’s first women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York. One of the organizers, Philadelphia Quaker Lucretia Mott, along with others at the convention saw women’s oppression as one of many threats to individual liberty, including slavery, abusive prisons, and the horrific treatment of Native Americans. Real change, she believed, would require going to the root of the problem, “mindless tradition and savage greed.”
According to the National Women’s History Alliance, workplaces, libraries, organizations, and public facilities now participate in Women’s Equality Day with programs, displays, video showings, and other activities. Modern-day observances not only commemorate the passage of the 19th Amendment, but also honor women’s continuing efforts toward full equality.
Native American women and other women of color did not immediately benefit from the ratification of the 19th Amendment. In fact, the positive impact of the 19th Amendment was primarily limited to white women. It prohibited states from using gender as a barrier to suffrage, but states could and did use factors other than gender to keep certain segments of the population from voting. Even after 1920, many other obstacles restricted women, as well as some men, from exercising this key right of citizenship.
Current historians and activists acknowledge the limitations of the suffrage amendment, particularly for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC). It was not until the 1924 passage of the Indian Citizenship Act that Native American women and men gained full U.S. citizenship with voting rights.
Unfortunately, the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act left the legislation of Native American citizenship rights to the states and many indigenous citizens remained disenfranchised for many years. For example, the Alaska Territorial Legislature allowed indigenous women to vote but only if they gave up tribal customs and traditions. New Mexico, the last state to enfranchise Native Americans, did not do so until 1962.
The 15th Amendment to the Constitution of 1870 ensured that the right to vote could not be denied “on account of race, color, or previous position of servitude.” However, many states found new ways to prevent racial minorities from voting, including literacy tests and poll taxes. Civil rights activists challenged state restrictions for nearly a century before their efforts resulted in The Civil Rights Act of 1960, which established federal penalties for obstructing someone from registering to vote. The 24th Amendment was ratified in 1964 to ban poll taxes in federal elections.
In 1965, the landmark Voting Rights Act banned discriminatory voting laws and established federal oversight of voter registration and elections. The Act was amended in 1975 to prohibit English-only ballots in areas where a single-language minority group comprised more than five percent of the voting-age population. Even after the passage of this Act, states refused to comply and have continuously developed new methods to discriminate against voters of color.
Recent voter repression tactics have arisen at the state level, as in North Dakota just before the 2018 elections. When the Supreme Court declined to overturn a voter ID law that required proof of a residential address, many members of the Standing Rock Lakota who used P.O. boxes or other nontraditional addresses were forced to scramble for new forms of identification. The Navajo Nation has alleged that Arizona has violated the Voting Rights Act by failing to provide language assistance and polling locations on reservations.
With COVID-19 disproportionately impacting reservation communities, many Native Americans face demoralizing obstacles to voting. Shuttered election offices and limited postal capacity added long-distance travel and increased cost to the action of casting a ballot. Voting rights advocates accuse states of failing to provide sufficient polling places, voting machines, and election staff.
The history and legacy of patriarchy and white supremacy continue. Women and BIPOC communities find that voting and political rights are not sufficient to insure equal justice under the law. Despite the promise of the 19th Amendment, voting continued to be restricted for many citizens until the 1965 Voting Rights Act and since.
In 1976, 14 years after the full extension of voting rights to Native Americans and 11 years after the passage of the Voting Rights Act, activist Janet McCloud (Tulalip) whose Native American name Yet Si Blue, means “Woman Who Speaks Her Mind”, looked around at her audience of 400 and asked, “How many of you feel secure in your future? How many of you feel you have rights or a real choice in elections?”
Her co-panelist Sally Fixico responded wisely, “It’s like the fingers of your hand; if you fight with one at a time, they’ll cut you down. If you meet them with one mighty fist, they can’t beat you. This fist is all of us — women, Indians, Blacks, sexual minorities, Chicanos, Asian Americans — all of us!”
The current focus for women and their allies on Women’s Equality Day includes recognizing continuous collective activism since 1920 to expand women’s citizenship beyond the vote. Women, especially women of color, are organized around issues of social and economic rights as well as political rights. For example, campaigns to protect women from sexual violence and to promote Indigenous rights continue into the present.
This more comprehensive recognition and activism is part of a broader, deeper, ongoing struggle for Native American women’s full engagement with democracy. This struggle covers many fronts—from political representation and the vote to issues of cultural integrity and environmental and reproductive justice.
In addition to organizing, fundraising, public speaking, and publishing in the movement for change, Native American women also entered public office. Wilma Mankiller (1945-2010) became the first woman Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation in 1985. She reminded her opponents that objections to Native women in authority are a colonial imposition.
Over the course of her 10 years as chief, Mankiller encouraged other women to engage in politics because, as she said, “If we do not participate, then decisions will be made without us.”
In 2018, the first Native American women were elected to Congress: Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo) from New Mexico (now the first Native American cabinet member serving as President Biden’s Secretary of the Interior) and Sharice Davids (Ho-Chunk) from Kansas. Despite these and other victories, the work of equality and justice for Native American women and girls is far from complete.
Since the 19th century, women have consistently argued that protection from interpersonal violence is an essential component of their citizenship. Men routinely assault women as an act of political aggression.
Women are denied full citizenship when their ability to navigate public space in the same manner as men is compromised by fear of assault. Women activists and allies before and after the ratification of the 19th Amendment define citizenship as the right to expect safety and security while navigating the world.
Deeply disturbing statistics show an ongoing epidemic of domestic abuse, sexual violence, trafficking, and deadly assault for all women and particularly for Native women. Over 80 percent of Native women, girls, and LGBTQ2S people have experienced violence, with 50 percent experiencing sexual violence. In some Native communities, rates of murder and domestic violence are 10 times the national average.
Women now demand that society moves past commemorations toward a safer and more equitable America. This happens only when society takes sexual violence seriously and offenders face real consequences. For women of color, who face racial and sexual violence as significant obstacles to voting, the demand for state protection against violence equals the push for the ballot.
Drawing on centuries of activism for Native sovereignty and cultural integrity, political rights, environmental and health protections, and more, Native American women continue the struggle for full citizenship. Despite all challenges, diverse communities of women have made their voices heard for millennia, both without and beyond the vote. Their collective action serves as a powerful example of the progress possible when people stand together for the common good.
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