"I envy neither the heart nor the head of any legislator who has been born to an inheritance of privileges, who has behind him ages of education, dominion, civilization, and Christianity, if he stands opposed to the passage of a national education bill, whose purpose is to secure education to the children of those who were born under the shadow of institutions which made it a crime to read."
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825-1911), African American suffragist and rights advocate. As quoted in Black Women in Nineteenth-Century American Life, part 3, by Bert James Loewenberg and Ruth Bogin (1976).
Harper said this in 1893. Born free, she was advocating education for African American children. It had been a crime to teach slaves to read. |
"I do not think the mere extension of the ballot a panacea for all the ills of our national life. What we need to-day is not simply more voters, but better voters."
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825-1911), U.S. suffragist and rights advocate. As quoted in Black Women in Nineteenth-Century American Life, part 3, by Bert James Loewenberg and Ruth Bogin (1976).
From her 1893 speech at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago: "Woman's Political Future." |
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