The FIRST Presidential Ticket With a White Woman and a Black Man

[WeDidIt]

No, not Obama/Clinton 2008.

Woodhull/Douglass 1872 was the FIRST PResidential ticket with a white woman and a black man. They ran on the Equal Rights Party ticket. That's Victoria Woodhull and Frederick Douglass. We've come a loooong way in 136 years.

[stray cat]

1. Running for president but neither could vote?

[WeDidIt]

2. Douglass could vote. Woodhull coudn't.

[Critters2]

3. Yeah. People forget that AA men had the vote before women. nt

[WeDidIt]

4. But a white woman ran for president before any black man.

Weirdness abounds in this strange nation of ours.

[Spider Jerusalem]

11. In theory; tell us how that worked out in practice.

How many white women were lynched for voting? Or had to pay poll taxes? Pass literacy tests?

[WeDidIt]

12. In practice, it took 92 years

to begin to throw off the intimidation via viloence.

[Doctor_J]

19. Limpballs is telling people that every day.

Coming soon to a batshit-crazy hate e-mail account near you

[genna]

5. How did that work out for the politics of that day?

Did they get death threats too? Or raise consciousness or awareness?

[WeDidIt]

7. No, no death threats

There's no record of whether or not there were any votes cast for the ticket. Douglass didn't even acknowledge the nomination for the vice presidency and served as an elector from the state of New York that year. Teh two major candidates were Ulysses S. Grant, Republican (whom Douglass endorsed and was an elector for), and Horace Greeley, Liberal Republican. The Democrats nominated Greeley, too. Woodhull was ineligible to be president had she been elected. She turned 35 years old nearly six months after Grant was inaugurated.

[grantcart]

6. she was involved in a trial equalling that of OJ Simpson in terms of public interest

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Woodhull


On May 14, 1870, she and Tennessee established a paper, (with money made from her brokerage days), Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly, which stayed in publication for the next six years, and became notorious for publishing controversial opinions on taboo topics (especially with regard to sex education and free love). The paper advocated, among other things, women's suffrage, short skirts, spiritualism, free love, vegetarianism, and licensed prostitution. It's commonly stated that the paper also advocated birth control, but some historians disagree. The paper is now known primarily for printing the first English version of Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto in its December 30, 1871 edition.

The Weekly broke an important story in 1872 that set off a national scandal that preoccupied much of the public for months. One of the most renowned ministers of the day, Henry Ward Beecher, had condemned Woodhull's free love philosophy in his sermons. But a member of his church, Theodore Tilton, disclosed to Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a colleague of Woodhull, that his wife confessed to him that Beecher was committing adultery with her, and this hypocrisy provoked Woodhull to expose Beecher. Ultimately Beecher stood trial for adultery in an 1875 legal proceeding that equalled, if not exceeded, the sensationalism of the O.J. Simpson trial a century later, holding the attention of hundreds of thousands of Americans.

George Francis Train once defended her. Other feminists of her time, including Susan B. Anthony, disagreed with her tactics in pushing for women's equality. Some characterized her as opportunistic and unpredictable: in one notable incident, she had a run in with Anthony during a meeting of the NWSA. (The radical NWSA later merged with the conservative AWSA to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association).

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

9. There were a few free love communes in the nineteenth century

before the Civil War, at least one in upstate New York (Oneida?), if memory serves. Sojourner Truth was involved with one, but as a servant, not a participant, I believe. I had to write an original historical paper for my high school senior social studies class back in 1968. I wrote about Sojourner Truth and read all the available documents at the time (helps to live next to one of the largest university libraries in the nation).

[phrigndumass]

18. Beecher, no longer a minister, later started his own business

... a slaughterhouse. It became known as "Beecher Meats" ...

:sarcasm:

Very interesting, gc!

[SparkyMac]

8. And 48 years later -- white women got the vote

Is that a sign of future progress ?

[WeDidIt]

10. And 92 years later, black men actually were able to exercise their franchise

Voting Rights act of 1964 and all that.

That's how things progress in this country.

[NOLALady]

14. Black men AND black women.

[WeDidIt]

16. True that!

White women were able to exercise the franchise openly before black women, without a doubt.

[NOLALady]

13. That's interesting.

Wasn't Frederick Douglass also biracial?

[Willo]

17. Probably not from a positive relationship n/t

[Colobo]

15. Interesting!