American Equal Rights Association

The American Equal Rights Association was an organization founded in 1866 to advocate equal rights, including voting rights, regardless of race or sex. It dissolved in 1869 amid conflict over strategy and the proposed Fifteenth Amendment.

American Civil War: A war fought in the United States from 1861 to 1865 between the Union and the Confederacy. The war’s end opened a political struggle over citizenship and voting rights that shaped the association’s founding.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton: An American women’s rights leader who helped organize the Seneca Falls Convention and later campaigned for women’s suffrage. Stanton helped lead the association and opposed supporting Black male suffrage without women’s enfranchisement.
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution: The 1868 constitutional amendment establishing birthright citizenship and requiring equal protection under the law. Debates over its proposed use of the word “male” intensified the association’s disagreement over suffrage.
National Woman Suffrage Association: A women’s suffrage organization founded in 1869 by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Stanton and Anthony formed it after the association split, opposing the Fifteenth Amendment without women’s enfranchisement.
Reconstruction era: The period from 1865 to 1877 when the United States addressed emancipation, citizenship, and the reintegration of former Confederate states. The association emerged as Reconstruction debates made Black suffrage a national political question.
Susan B. Anthony: An American reformer who organized campaigns for women’s rights and suffrage. Anthony worked with Stanton in the association and helped shape its postwar suffrage strategy.
Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution: The 1870 constitutional amendment prohibiting denial of voting rights on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Disagreement over whether to support its race-based protection without sex-based protection helped break the association apart.
American Woman Suffrage Association: A women’s suffrage organization founded in 1869 by Lucy Stone, Henry Blackwell, and allies. Its founders favored supporting the Fifteenth Amendment while continuing to campaign for women’s voting rights.
American Anti-Slavery Society: An abolitionist organization founded in 1833 that campaigned to end slavery in the United States. Abolitionist networks and activists helped establish the association after emancipation.
Frederick Douglass: An American abolitionist, writer, and orator who escaped slavery and became a leading advocate for Black civil rights. Douglass argued within the association that Black men’s voting rights required urgent protection.

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