“Yet She Is Advancing”

One hundred years ago, the passage of the 19th Amendment expanded the vote to American women, but Louisiana did not formally ratify the law until 50 years later. The tension between progress and tradition, equality and prejudice in Louisiana was perhaps most keenly felt in New Orleans, where wealthy white women organized to win the vote for themselves but ignored or intentionally neglected the suffrage of women of African descent. After 1920, African American women continued to fight for access to the ballot until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 ended the discriminatory practices that prevented black Louisianians from exercising their constitutional right to vote.