The Dark Side of Great Historic Figures

The Dark Side of Great Historic Figures

Khalid Elhassan - December 11, 2020

The Dark Side of Great Historic Figures
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, seated, and Susan B. Anthony. Library of Congress

31. Susan B. Anthony Wanted Nothing to Do With America’s Leading Black Rights Activist

Understandably, Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s and Susan B. Anthony’s racist attacks deeply wounded Frederick Douglass, who decried “the employment of certain names such as ‘Sambo’“. He declined to stoop to tit-for-tat insults, and continued supporting women’s rights for the rest of his life.

His support was frequently snubbed, with racist insults tossed in. At an 1890s suffrage convention in Atlanta, for example, Susan B. Anthony asked Douglass to not appear on stage with white women. As a black man, she told him, his presence alongside white women would be “inappropriate”.

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