1 00:00:00,420 --> 00:00:07,050 Our final speaker is Miss Kimberly Caines, who will speak on the intersection of women's suffrage and race. 2 00:00:07,050 --> 00:00:12,750 Kim is a litigation attorney at MGM and also the co-founder of the Women's Legal Network. 3 00:00:12,750 --> 00:00:19,350 Her undergraduate degree was in women's studies in Spanish, and she read law at City Law School Learning in England. 4 00:00:19,350 --> 00:00:27,360 Thank you, Chan. Thank you to the Oxford University Research Centre and the Centre for Justice for this opportunity. 5 00:00:27,360 --> 00:00:34,770 As I prepared for this discussion, it hit particularly close to home for me because on the 4th of February this year, 6 00:00:34,770 --> 00:00:38,340 I will have the opportunity to cast my vote in my constituencies. 7 00:00:38,340 --> 00:00:45,960 Byelection Constituency 13 a civic duty that I had come to take for granted every four to five years is clearly 8 00:00:45,960 --> 00:00:52,980 something that did not just come to be as I gave thought to voting and contemplated it in light of this talk. 9 00:00:52,980 --> 00:00:58,470 The questions to be answered for me was what impact did race have on the suffrage movement? 10 00:00:58,470 --> 00:01:03,360 And in turn, what impact did the suffrage movement have on race, if any? 11 00:01:03,360 --> 00:01:07,860 Following my research on this discrete point, which is limited at best, 12 00:01:07,860 --> 00:01:15,720 I conclude that there is not only an influence of race on the suffrage movement, but looking at the suffrage movement from the other side of the coin. 13 00:01:15,720 --> 00:01:19,890 It is safe to say that the suffrage movement impacted race in this country. 14 00:01:19,890 --> 00:01:29,010 There are three key points that are elucidated from this intersection. A framework is highlighted, a fear is apparent, and future groundwork is laid. 15 00:01:29,010 --> 00:01:34,170 For the avoidance of doubt, the suffrage movement is one element of the overall women's movement, 16 00:01:34,170 --> 00:01:40,110 which I would submit continues today as women seek equality with our male counterparts. 17 00:01:40,110 --> 00:01:47,790 During the suffrage movement, women fought for the right to vote and to be engaged in the political process nationally and parochial. 18 00:01:47,790 --> 00:01:53,010 However, before I delve and unpack my three f's of frameworks and future, 19 00:01:53,010 --> 00:01:59,820 it's necessary to set the contextual and chronological background of the suffrage movement. 20 00:01:59,820 --> 00:02:05,400 The women's suffrage movement and its subsequent impact in Bermuda dates back to 1848, 21 00:02:05,400 --> 00:02:09,810 where the first American Women's Convention in Seneca Falls issues a declaration 22 00:02:09,810 --> 00:02:13,830 for women's suffrage and equal education and employment opportunities. 23 00:02:13,830 --> 00:02:19,620 In the 1860s for median women were barred from vestry were in the church vestiges acts. 24 00:02:19,620 --> 00:02:24,540 1867 specifically restricted the franchise to males. 25 00:02:24,540 --> 00:02:32,520 This will be relevant in due course with the Supreme Court case that sought to challenge this between 1869 and the late 1800s. 26 00:02:32,520 --> 00:02:37,770 Three million women signed and made their desires known for suffrage to the British Parliament. 27 00:02:37,770 --> 00:02:44,460 However, approximately one hundred and twenty years ago here in Bermuda in 1890 ninety five, 28 00:02:44,460 --> 00:02:50,580 the suffrage movement becomes live, where the first petition was made on behalf of four million women. 29 00:02:50,580 --> 00:02:56,040 122 Bermudian women signed a petition which was presented in the House of Assembly. 30 00:02:56,040 --> 00:03:02,910 Anna Maria Outerbridge, a human rights activist, asks her father, Dr Te Outerbridge, to propose the bill. 31 00:03:02,910 --> 00:03:08,520 The bill is tabled and it's passed in the House but defeated in the Legislative Council. 32 00:03:08,520 --> 00:03:17,640 Moving to nineteen hundred women are denied the right to vote again as the Parliament Election Act was restricted to males only in 1919. 33 00:03:17,640 --> 00:03:24,780 Sir Stanley Spurling, a champion of women's rights, urges the house to set up a committee to draw a bill on women's suffrage. 34 00:03:24,780 --> 00:03:28,560 Three years pass and nothing is completed in 1920. 35 00:03:28,560 --> 00:03:30,900 Our American sisters get the right to vote. 36 00:03:30,900 --> 00:03:37,560 However, in the background, there is a young woman by the name of Gladys MiSeq later morale moral Bermudian, 37 00:03:37,560 --> 00:03:47,190 who was born in 1888 with strong ties to Somerset. She founded an organisation called the Bermuda Women's Suffrage Society in 1923. 38 00:03:47,190 --> 00:03:54,120 She's charged with leading the cause for women, and her efforts were in fact recognised at last year's National Heroes celebration. 39 00:03:54,120 --> 00:04:00,000 And her story can be found in the book Gladys Murrell and the Women's Suffrage Movement in Bermuda by Colin Benbow. 40 00:04:00,000 --> 00:04:04,920 Miss Morel was one of the first comedians to go overseas to obtain higher education, 41 00:04:04,920 --> 00:04:10,260 and arguably it was her time in the UK that gave her exposure to the suffragette movement, 42 00:04:10,260 --> 00:04:15,390 which, when she returned to Bermuda, brought with her the same desire for progressive changes. 43 00:04:15,390 --> 00:04:25,140 In 1925, attempts to grant women full parliamentary, municipal and parochial franchises were defeated 8:36 in half an hour. 44 00:04:25,140 --> 00:04:34,440 The two bills were brought by Sir Stanley Sperling, the Women's Suffrage Act 1925, and the Jury Act for women in 1925. 45 00:04:34,440 --> 00:04:38,970 In 1928, Murrell bought a test action in the Supreme Court, 46 00:04:38,970 --> 00:04:44,790 wherein she challenged the then sans parish statutory judge Patterson for refusing her the right to vote. 47 00:04:44,790 --> 00:04:50,940 This case was Murrell and Paterson. The then chief justice, Rowan Hamilton, concluded that quote. 48 00:04:50,940 --> 00:04:59,880 He was satisfied that women never possessed the right to vote at parish meetings in Bermuda and consequently could not be nominated as vestry men. 49 00:04:59,880 --> 00:05:02,160 And that no such claim has ever been made. 50 00:05:02,160 --> 00:05:09,750 The defendant, Patterson, was technically successful and for the litigators in the house, he was awarded his costs, which the society paid. 51 00:05:09,750 --> 00:05:15,450 In applying more pressure, Moral enlisted the help of UK suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst, 52 00:05:15,450 --> 00:05:22,500 who told Bermudian she was surprised that one of America's oldest colonies was so slow to extend equal rights to women. 53 00:05:22,500 --> 00:05:29,610 Arguably, that quote could be applied to other rights which are being sought were momentum seems to pick up, as in 1930, 54 00:05:29,610 --> 00:05:36,990 when the women attended Paris fashion meeting and when they were disallowed the right to vote, they refused to pay their parish taxes. 55 00:05:36,990 --> 00:05:42,090 Moral and the other ladies held rallies and tea parties and letter writing campaigns, 56 00:05:42,090 --> 00:05:51,210 keeping in contact with overseas groups and even holding a mock funeral to demonstrate the passing of justice which had been killed by men. 57 00:05:51,210 --> 00:05:59,280 So Stanley tries to advance the cause again in nineteen thirty one, and he is defeated again between 1935 and 1944. 58 00:05:59,280 --> 00:06:04,320 Activity spurs the right for women MP Henry Tucker, who would become Sir Henry pilots. 59 00:06:04,320 --> 00:06:11,730 The bill through the House on the 21st of April 1944, with the vote of twenty to thirteen and in the Upper House three to five, 60 00:06:11,730 --> 00:06:15,870 resulting in the suffragettes securing voting rights for all women white or black, 61 00:06:15,870 --> 00:06:23,340 who owned property in 1944, Mrs Henrietta Tucker was honoured as the first woman to vote in a by election and 62 00:06:23,340 --> 00:06:28,440 Miss Edna Williams was the first black woman to vote in that byelection in 1948. 63 00:06:28,440 --> 00:06:33,930 The first women were elected to the House. Hilda Aiken for dementia and Edna Watson for Paget. 64 00:06:33,930 --> 00:06:39,540 To date, Bermuda has had three female premiers and numerous women sit in the house on its own. 65 00:06:39,540 --> 00:06:46,980 The progress of women in this country sounds good, but when you marry that with the social, racial and political backdrop, 66 00:06:46,980 --> 00:06:54,390 one sees the challenge that this movement highlighted the three point framework, fear and future. 67 00:06:54,390 --> 00:07:02,880 The framework on a very basic level one has to remember the social context at this time segregation in countries where economic, 68 00:07:02,880 --> 00:07:07,980 social and political power results and control the way in which you limit this control is 69 00:07:07,980 --> 00:07:13,200 to put restrictions in place while the chronology is descriptive and informative at best. 70 00:07:13,200 --> 00:07:19,650 It would be remiss not to mention and remind you that in order to vote in Bermuda, you had to own property of a certain value which, 71 00:07:19,650 --> 00:07:25,410 following emancipation would have been very difficult for a large portion of this community to overcome. 72 00:07:25,410 --> 00:07:28,080 As a result of this restriction, black individuals, 73 00:07:28,080 --> 00:07:35,280 lower class whites and Portuguese in this country could not vote by virtue of their inability to own property of a certain value. 74 00:07:35,280 --> 00:07:40,320 This evil was particularly compounded when, immediately following emancipation, 75 00:07:40,320 --> 00:07:47,130 the value of land needed to vote was increased by the power vestry to the determined value of sixty pounds. 76 00:07:47,130 --> 00:07:52,950 Further, if you own land in more than one parish, you got more than one vote. 77 00:07:52,950 --> 00:08:01,410 So if an individual land, if an individual owned land in multiple parishes, they could return votes for all four MSPs in the parish. 78 00:08:01,410 --> 00:08:09,000 This is a quote that one magistrate recounts that a man with land in all nine parishes placed his wife and all five adult children on his properties, 79 00:08:09,000 --> 00:08:15,150 which meant that they each had thirty six votes in that they controlled 216 votes, 80 00:08:15,150 --> 00:08:19,530 not because they did not own the property, but because it was worth less than sixty pounds. 81 00:08:19,530 --> 00:08:23,190 To put it into perspective, how skewed the numbers were in 1930, 82 00:08:23,190 --> 00:08:29,070 a survey by the Bermuda Women's Suffragette Society found that out of a population of 30000 in Bermuda, 83 00:08:29,070 --> 00:08:36,300 where 36 represented representatives were elected, this was the elections were made possible by only 4300 people. 84 00:08:36,300 --> 00:08:44,580 This was extremely unfair and disproportionate. The majority in this number arguably would not have been blacks, lower class whites or Portuguese. 85 00:08:44,580 --> 00:08:52,470 The framework in place at that time also identified the mindset of those in power who sought to keep the imbalance in place. 86 00:08:52,470 --> 00:08:57,630 The treatment that women endured during this fight was demeaning, wherein their identity was besmirched. 87 00:08:57,630 --> 00:09:01,740 There were letters that were sent to England calling these women crazy, and one quote, 88 00:09:01,740 --> 00:09:08,190 which is my paraphrase that was made to a woman during this time was Why do you want to trouble your heads with politics in such matters? 89 00:09:08,190 --> 00:09:13,740 We don't want to burden you. The app's reply from the suffragette was, Well, if we deal with disgruntled men all the time, 90 00:09:13,740 --> 00:09:22,830 we can definitely handle politics from the imposed restrictions of the day, clearly tried to keep race and voting as separate and distinct. 91 00:09:22,830 --> 00:09:27,510 But the reality was you could only keep these variables apart for so long before their 92 00:09:27,510 --> 00:09:33,180 inevitable intersection took place publicly and resulted in social and political change. 93 00:09:33,180 --> 00:09:39,500 It should be noted that during the battle for the ballot, namely the period of 1923 and 1944, 94 00:09:39,500 --> 00:09:43,620 there is very little reference to blacks in their apparent involvement in this process. 95 00:09:43,620 --> 00:09:47,610 However, I would submit that Gladys Murrell knew that her work could not be limited to 96 00:09:47,610 --> 00:09:52,290 one class of women for the concept of woman in and of itself is not homogenous. 97 00:09:52,290 --> 00:09:55,830 So when it was brought to her attention that there was a lack of involvement from blacks, 98 00:09:55,830 --> 00:09:59,710 general meetings were held at workman's clubs, which historically was the hub of. 99 00:09:59,710 --> 00:10:01,770 The black community. And as a result, 100 00:10:01,770 --> 00:10:09,990 it was said that the BW Access quote forms their own public pressure group across racial lines and quote in order to be effective as a movement, 101 00:10:09,990 --> 00:10:16,230 there had to be support from many in this country. There is no clear indication that black women were on the front line. 102 00:10:16,230 --> 00:10:21,390 But when women ultimately receive the vote, Miss Edna Williams, a black woman, cast hers. 103 00:10:21,390 --> 00:10:26,310 While the research is limited on how involved black blacks were in the suffrage movement. 104 00:10:26,310 --> 00:10:32,220 The fact the fact that a black woman voted is indicative of the knowledge that was shared in the community. 105 00:10:32,220 --> 00:10:40,470 This brings me to my second point that of fear. Why was the why was there a lack of involvement by blacks in this in this movement? 106 00:10:40,470 --> 00:10:46,110 While there was little or no support from black property owners quote most of whom were too busy earning 107 00:10:46,110 --> 00:10:52,170 a living to have time to attend afternoon meetings in an almost totally segregated island for media, 108 00:10:52,170 --> 00:10:59,550 both blacks, males and females were aware of the socio economic repercussions that could follow unpopular political acts. 109 00:10:59,550 --> 00:11:07,200 But this did not deter Alice Scott from from participating. Conversely, there may have been a fear from those who had who held the power. 110 00:11:07,200 --> 00:11:13,500 The white upperclassmen, as Mr. Brown writes in his book Which You Should All By Bermuda and the Struggle for Reform, 111 00:11:13,500 --> 00:11:19,560 Race and Politics and Ideology 1944 to Nineteen ninety eight quote the case studies reveal 112 00:11:19,560 --> 00:11:24,210 a white ruling class prepared to act boldly to defend or to advance its interests, 113 00:11:24,210 --> 00:11:28,350 while at the same time barely containing its enquiry about what it believed were imminent. 114 00:11:28,350 --> 00:11:37,170 Threats from below the vote for bourgeois women was resisted, at least particularly because it might provoke the enfranchisement of the black masses. 115 00:11:37,170 --> 00:11:42,060 What this suggests is a ruling class whose members perceive themselves to be resting on a 116 00:11:42,060 --> 00:11:47,880 fragile hegemonic order supported by a vote less disorganised and pliant working class, 117 00:11:47,880 --> 00:11:50,490 an order that would collapse if workers were empowered, 118 00:11:50,490 --> 00:11:56,940 conscious and organised and quote those in power knew that in order to maintain the status quo, 119 00:11:56,940 --> 00:12:01,050 keeping women disenfranchised would not rock the social order of keeping blacks, 120 00:12:01,050 --> 00:12:06,510 women and Portuguese out of the political process and thereby allowing them to retain power. 121 00:12:06,510 --> 00:12:09,360 This brings me to my final point of the future. 122 00:12:09,360 --> 00:12:16,050 It's apparent that race played a part in the suffrage movement as showing a unity across racial lines had an impact. 123 00:12:16,050 --> 00:12:20,670 But arguably it was the suffrage movement that laid the groundwork for the universal movement for. 124 00:12:20,670 --> 00:12:28,590 As Nancy Astor and Anglo American quoted was quoted as saying when she was in Bermuda, if a colour problem now exists, you must face it squarely. 125 00:12:28,590 --> 00:12:33,600 The general consensus from blacks is noted in the May 1944 Recorder that quote, 126 00:12:33,600 --> 00:12:38,460 although the coloured people in the main seemed perturbed over the granting of women's suffrage, 127 00:12:38,460 --> 00:12:41,490 they had little to be thankful for under the old system. 128 00:12:41,490 --> 00:12:49,140 We are told that in the future, not only will matters be no worse for us, but as a decided improvement is to be expected and quote. 129 00:12:49,140 --> 00:12:54,330 A natural consequence of allowing women to vote was an impact on the future of this country. 130 00:12:54,330 --> 00:12:58,350 The Bermuda women's suffrage movement set the stage for another political development. 131 00:12:58,350 --> 00:13:01,140 The 20 year fight for universal suffrage, 132 00:13:01,140 --> 00:13:07,350 where it was conducted that by black citizens who had wanted it and the abolition of the property qualification all along. 133 00:13:07,350 --> 00:13:14,940 As history unfolded, the freeholder vote happened in 1963, where Albany unions 25 and older were eligible to vote. 134 00:13:14,940 --> 00:13:19,920 The floor vote was retained. Perhaps an attempt to to continue to control. 135 00:13:19,920 --> 00:13:26,400 In 1963, the same year, the first black woman, Dame Louis, was elected to parliament in 67. 136 00:13:26,400 --> 00:13:30,150 The first woman is elected to a municipal corporation in sixty eight. 137 00:13:30,150 --> 00:13:35,460 There is universal suffrage, plural vote is abolished and the voting age is reduced to 21. 138 00:13:35,460 --> 00:13:40,920 And in 1990 89, the voting age is reduced from 21 to 18 years of age. 139 00:13:40,920 --> 00:13:46,800 So in conclusion, at the outset of the movement, there is a covert interplay between race in the suffrage movement. 140 00:13:46,800 --> 00:13:50,610 But in due course, the interplay became more pronounced and visibly impacted. 141 00:13:50,610 --> 00:13:57,300 Bermuda. Looking at this intersection highlights the framework of the time, the fear that existed and the future. 142 00:13:57,300 --> 00:14:01,500 Bermuda our present, which we have benefited from the work has not ended, 143 00:14:01,500 --> 00:14:09,120 but continues to this day as the women's movement continues to advance, as we seek equality and political, social and economic spheres. 144 00:14:09,120 --> 00:14:13,110 Race, class and other variables will continue to play their part in the movement. 145 00:14:13,110 --> 00:14:17,310 However, these variables cannot operate in silos, as was attempted in the past. 146 00:14:17,310 --> 00:14:22,145 For if the changes that needs to be made for women are to take place, I think you.