Women's Suffrage in Dallas County

The movement that formed in Dallas was a white one. The Texas Equal Rights Association, founded at the Windsor Hotel in 1893, had no written rule excluding Black members, yet its membership was exclusively white, and its first president opposed universal suffrage. The Handbook of Texas adds that state suffrage groups stayed segregated, that in 1918 national leaders had Texas discourage an El Paso Black women's league from affiliating, and that the 1918 primary law carried the only literacy test in Texas voting history. After 1920 poll taxes and the white primary kept many women away.

What the plaque says

Women's Suffrage in Dallas County The first organized effort on behalf of women's suffrage in Texas occurred in May 1893, when the Texas Equal Rights Association (TERA), later known as the League of Women Voters of Texas, was formed at a convention held at Dallas' Windsor Hotel. Of the forty-eight charter members of the organization, fourteen were Dallasites. In October of that year, TERA leaders helped to organize the Texas Woman's Congress, which met at the State Fair in Dallas. During this period, a weekly suffrage column, entitled "Women in Public" was published in the Dallas Morning News. Suffrage advocates continued their work into the 20th century. On March 13, 1913, forty-three Dallas women gathered to establish the Dallas Equal Suffrage Association (DESA), which became the League of Women Voters of Dallas in October 1919. Many of the women had participated in previous suffrage organizations; younger members were eager to contribute to the cause. The group elected Margaret Bell Houston Kaufman, granddaughter of Sam Houston, as its first president. During World War I, DESA officers served as leaders in local wartime organizations while continuing to advocate the cause of women's suffrage. During the 1918 Texas Gubernatorial Campaign, members of DESA procured signatures of over 10,000 Dallas County women on a petition backing a primary suffrage bill. The bill passed, enabling Texas women to vote in primary elections. Dallas County suffragists registered over 16,000 women to vote in the July 1918 primary election. The Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution allowed women to vote on August 26, 1920. This act was the culmination of years of struggle and effort put forth by the suffragists of Dallas County and the nation. (2009)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza — steps away
  A plow-company warehouse of 1903, identified by the Warren Commission as the building Oswald fired from, now a museum on its sixth and seventh floors above Dealey Plaza.
• Dallas Museum of Art — 0.7 mi
  A city art museum that began as the Dallas Art Association in 1903, grew up in Fair Park, and has stood in the Arts District since 1984 under a forty-foot barrel vault.
• Dallas Heritage Village at Old City Park — 1.2 mi
  Dallas's first city park, laid out around Browder's Spring in 1876, now a museum of historic buildings moved here from across North Texas, among them Millermore, a cotton planter's mansion.
• African American Museum, Dallas — 2.5 mi
  Founded in 1974 at Bishop College, a free Fair Park museum holding the Sepia photograph archive, African art and A. Maceo Smith's papers, and the story of the Hall of Negro Life.

More markers nearby

• First Juries to Sit Women in Dallas County — steps away
• 1910 Lynching of Allen Brooks — steps away
• Log Cabin Pioneers of Dallas County — steps away
• Dallas County — steps away