Finishing the Fight in Our Second Century
Lisa Janairo, ljanairo129@gmail.com
(originally published in the February 2021 Bulletin)
Forgiving divisions in our past
women celebrate 100 years of voting freedom
along with 100 years of service by Dane County League of Women Voters.
These 100 years create a more perfect democracy where everyone
participates no matter their race, gender, economic status, or language.
Truly women are better together than apart.
“Centennial Challenges,” our Lively Issues Conversation on January 16, began with these words from Madison poet laureate Fabu, written in celebration of our chapter’s centennial celebration. The “divisions in our past” are covered in Dr. Carolyn Jefferson-Jenkins’ book The Untold Story of Women of Color in the League of Women Voters, which — as Louise Robbins noted in her excellent blog post — chronicles the “deep strains of bigotry” held by some of the League’s “towering heroines” and the actions by League members to actively discourage full participation by women of color in the struggle to achieve suffrage for women. One of those “towering heroines” is Wisconsin’s own Carrie Chapman Catt, founder of LWV, who famously assuaged the fears of white southerners about passage of the 19th Amendment by saying, “White supremacy will be strengthened, not weakened, by women's suffrage.”
The first African American president of the national LWV, Dr. Jefferson-Jenkins focused her talk on “Finishing the Fight” — on bringing about her vision of the League as an organization that recognizes “the value of all people in reality, not just rhetoric; in value, not just voice/visuals; and in beliefs, not just benefits.” She asked the 115 attendees, “Is finishing the fight our charge, and should we accept that responsibility?” Had we been in a room together, the answer would have been a resounding “Yes!” Quoting Catt, Dr. Jefferson-Jenkins said, “What should be done, can be done; what can be done, let us do.” Acknowledging that, despite her flaws, Catt was a visionary, Dr. Jefferson-Jenkins said, “We need to amplify the good and learn from the inexcusable.” She encouraged us to “acknowledge the past, learn from it, and use it as the foundation for a better future,” and challenged us to give women of color the recognition they deserve in League history. Her book documents the many women of color who fought tirelessly at the national level — women like Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Mary Church Terrell, and Fanny Jackson Coppin. But there are women of color at the state and chapter level who deserve recognition, too, such as Delilah L. Beasley, a journalist, historian, and activist in the League in Alameda County, California, during the 1920s. What is the untold story of women of color right here in Dane County or in the State of Wisconsin?
The LWVDC Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Committee is attempting to answer this question with a long-term project to study our chapter’s past with specific regard to involvement of women of color. As Dr. Jefferson-Jenkins noted, understanding and overcoming our past is an important part of our work to diversify the League and keep the organization relevant as the demographics of our nation change. But it’s important to us as Americans, too — as people — because, as she observed, systemic racial and social injustice is a major new crisis facing our nation, our society, and our democracy. “We need to transform our thinking and value one another,” she said, going on to quote the White House proclamation on Martin Luther King, Jr., Holiday: “It is clear now more than ever before that we can no longer allow the American Dream to be deferred for Black Americans.” She urged us to use “Making Democracy Work” to influence policy at all levels to bring about the changes that are needed to dismantle systemic racism.
In her book and her talk, Dr. Jefferson-Jenkins emphasized the need to be mindful of principle in addition to practicality, to be transformative, not just transactional. For example, diversifying the membership of the League isn’t just a matter of better publicizing our events to targeted audiences. Instead, we need to “transform our thinking” and engage in what matters to the people we’re trying to reach — to “make a better investment” in what’s going on in those other organizations. The DEI Committee will be exploring this idea in the coming months as well. It’s important to understand that the DEI work of the League is not something that stands alone or apart. It isn’t a separate square on our organization chart, or a box that needs to be checked as we conduct voter services or develop program ideas. In the words of Dr. JeffersonJenkins, it’s something that needs to become “part of the organization’s fabric…that cannot be frayed.”
As this article goes to print, the DEI Committee is preparing to continue the conversation about “Finishing the Fight” during our first quarterly DEI Café of 2021, scheduled for January 30. In next month’s Bulletin, I’ll share some of the ideas from that conversation. In the meantime, if you are interested in learning more about the DEI Committee — or if you’d like to join — feel free to reach out to me at ljanairo129@gmail.com.