The Crisis Online Magazine: The Official Publication of the NAACP - Spring 2010

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Standing at the Crossroads By: WENDY G. SMOOTH Spring 2010

African American women as political actors stand at the crossroads of two politically marginalized groups —African Americans and women. Being situated at the intersection of these two groups has historically meant limited access to citizenship and exclusion from “we the people.” However, African American women’s access to both women’s and African American communities may make them the future of Black political representation.


As slaves, African American women and men were regarded as only three-fifths of a human being at the writing of the U.S. Constitution. African American women would later move from this marginal recognition under the Constitution to complete exclusion from constitutional protections with regards to the right to vote, as political scientist Mamie Locke points out. Following the Civil War, the passage of the 15th Amendment in 1870 extended the right to vote to Black men only.

The Crisis Online Magazine: The Official Publication of the NAACP - Spring 2010