History
Lucy Stone and Susan B. Anthony proposed the idea at an American Anti-Slavery Society meeting in Boston in January 1866. Stone had been involved with abolitionism through the American Anti-Slavery Society for 18 years, and had shifted her energies mainly to women's rights issues. Anthony's focus was primarily women's suffrage. The goal was to unite the energies of the two movements and focus on the common goal of universal suffrage. Anthony, Stone, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Frederick Douglass founded the group.
Three weeks prior to the first AERA meeting, on May 10, 1866 in New York City, the eleventh National Women's Rights Convention was called to order by Stanton. A stirring speech against racial discrimination was given by African-American activist Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, in which she said "...You white women speak here of rights. I speak of wrongs. I, as a colored woman, have had in this country an education which has made me feel as if I were in the situation of Ishmael, my hand against every man, and every man's hand against me..." Anthony and Stanton had begun to be perceived by some as elitist or racist, as being less concerned with the underprivileged.
Read more about this topic: American Equal Rights Association
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Regarding History as the slaughter-bench at which the happiness of peoples, the wisdom of States, and the virtue of individuals have been victimized—the question involuntarily arises—to what principle, to what final aim these enormous sacrifices have been offered.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“To summarize the contentions of this paper then. Firstly, the phrase ‘the meaning of a word’ is a spurious phrase. Secondly and consequently, a re-examination is needed of phrases like the two which I discuss, ‘being a part of the meaning of’ and ‘having the same meaning.’ On these matters, dogmatists require prodding: although history indeed suggests that it may sometimes be better to let sleeping dogmatists lie.”
—J.L. (John Langshaw)
“The history of mankind interests us only as it exhibits a steady gain of truth and right, in the incessant conflict which it records between the material and the moral nature.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)