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Sue Shelton White

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Sue Shelton White
Sue Shelton White circa 1920
Born(1887-05-25)May 25, 1887
Henderson, Tennessee
DiedMay 6, 1943(1943-05-06) (aged 55)
Alexandria, Virginia
NationalityAmerican
Alma materWashington College of Law
Occupation(s)Attorney, Suffragist

Sue Shelton White (May 25, 1887 – May 6, 1943), called Miss Sue, was a feminist leader originally from Henderson, Tennessee, who served as a national leader of the women's suffrage movement, member of the Silent Sentinels, editor of The Suffragist.

In 1918 White became chairman of the National Woman's Party. With passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution she returned home to help gain Tennessee ratification. In 1920 White returned to Washington, working as administrative secretary to U.S. Senator Kenneth McKeller, while attending Washington College of Law where she earned a law degree in 1923. She became lead counsel for the Social Security Administration.

Background

Sue Shelton White was born on May 25, 1887, in Henderson, Tennessee, the fourth of six children of James Shelton White and Mary Calista (Swain) White.[1] After White's father, a lawyer and Methodist minister, died when she was nine and her mother died when she was 14, White went to live with her aunt, Sue White Tarver.[1] When she was sixteen she took a teacher training course at Georgia Robertson Christian College (now Freed Hardman University) and the following year (1904-1905) attended West Tennessee Business College.[2] She started her career as a stenographer and clerk for the Southern Engine and Boiler Works in Jackson, Tennesee.[3] When her sister, Lucy White, resigned in 1907 as a court reporter for the Tennessee Supreme Court in Jackson, White took the job, which she held until 1918.[1][4]

Suffragist

White eventually became the recording secretary of the Tennessee Equal Suffrage Association, and the Tennessee state chair of the National Woman's Party.[4]

White joined the woman suffrage movement in 1912. She was originally active in the moderate Tennessee Equal Suffrage Association (an affiliate of the National American Woman Suffrage Association), and was elected recording secretary for that organization in 1913,[5] but gradually concluded that Alice Paul and Lucy Burns' more radical National Woman's Party, whose speaking tour through Tennessee by Maud Younger she had helped facilitate, was advocating policies and methods which would be more effective. She joined the NWP in 1918, became chair of the Tennessee chapter, and moved to Washington, D.C., where she edited the organization's newspaper, The Suffragist.[5]

With other members of the NWP, White drew national attention when on February 19, 1919, they held the latest of their Silent Sentinels series of demonstrations in front of the White House and burned a paper effigy of President Woodrow Wilson (which White and Mrs. Gabrielle Harris dropped into the fire).[6] They did this to protest Wilson's lack of energy in pressuring balky Senators of his own party. White, with others, was arrested and jailed.[7] After her release, White and others like her chartered a railroad car they called the "Prison Special," which toured the United States to keep the issue of suffrage before the public.[8]

After Congress passed the 19th Amendment on June 4, 1919, White returned home and helped Tennessee achieve ratification.[5] Tennessee would be the 36th and final state needed to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment. It was White’s job to run the National Woman’s Party ratification campaign in Tennessee, working collaboratively with state suffrage leaders and NAWSA to lobby 132 members of the legislature.[9] She established the NWP’s headquarters in downtown Nashville, organized field staff, including Anita Pollitzer, Bett Gram, and Catherine Flanagan, and regularly polled legislators.[10] [Weiss, p 154] She was credited with convincing Tennessee Speaker of the House Seth Walker to support ratification [176], but saw that support slip away when Walker decided to lead the opposition to the amendment on the House floor [Weiss, 226]. As support for the amendment waned, White announced she would reveal the names of any delegate who withdrew their support after pledging to ratify the amendment. [Weiss, 274]

After the 19th Amendment

From 1920 to 1926, White served as an administrative secretary running the Washington office of Tennessee U.S. Senator Kenneth McKeller.[7]

In 1923, White earned a law degree from Washington College of Law.[7] Three years later, she returned to Jackson as the city’s first female attorney and to work for her own law firm, Anderson and White.[5]

In 1928, white worked with the Midwestern division of the Democratic National Committee. At request of Eleanor Roosevelt, White also helped organize a Tennessee Business and Professional Women's League for Alfred E. Smith.[2]

She worked in the 1932 presidential campaign of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and from 1934 (when she moved to Washington, D.C.) held a variety of posts in the New Deal, culminating in her role as principal counsel of the Social Security Administration.[7]

After a long bout with cancer, White died on May 6, 1943, at the Alexandria, Virginia, home she shared with Florence Armstrong, her long-term friend.[8]

Tributes

On August 26, 2016, as part of Women's Equality Day, a monument by Alan LeQuire was unveiled in Centennial Park in Nashville, featuring depictions of White, Carrie Chapman Catt, Anne Dallas Dudley, Abby Crawford Milton, and Juno Frankie Pierce.[11][12]

There is a bust of White by Wanda Stanfill at the Jackson City Hall Plaza; it is part of the Tennessee Woman Suffrage Heritage Trail, and was placed as part of the centennial celebration of the 19th Amendment.[13]

The Sue Shelton White Award is given annually "to an outstanding attorney in West Tennessee who is a community activist working to create or change legislation to improve the lives of women and children in the state of Tennessee."[13]

Sources

  • "Sue Shelton White", in Adams, Katherine H. and Michael L. Keene, After the Vote Was Won: The Later Achievements of Fifteen Suffragists Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2010; pp. 143–150 and passim
  • Huehls, Betty Sparks. Sue Shelton White: Lady Warrior Memphis: University of Memphis Press, 2002
  • Weiss, Elaine. The Woman's Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote. Penguin, 2018


References

  1. ^ a b c Wilkerson-Freeman, Sarah (2009). Tennessee women: their lives and times. Athens: University of Georgia Press. p. 147. ISBN 9780820329482.
  2. ^ a b "White, Sue Shelton, 1887-1943. Papers of Sue Shelton White, 1898-1963 (inclusive), 1909-1963 (bulk): A Finding Aid". oasis.lib.harvard.edu. Retrieved 2016-11-12.
  3. ^ "The Awesome Foundation : Sue Shelton White Public Art Committee". www.awesomefoundation.org. Retrieved 2019-06-11.
  4. ^ a b Burns, David (2013-02-28). The Life and Death of the Radical Historical Jesus. OUP USA. ISBN 9780199929504.
  5. ^ a b c d "Unveiling suffrage on Women's Equality Day". The Jackson Sun. Retrieved 2016-11-12.
  6. ^ Stevens, Doris (1920). Jailed for Freedom. New York: Boni & Liveright. p. 315.
  7. ^ a b c d Adams, Katherine H.; Keene, Michael L. (2010-07-01). After the Vote Was Won: The Later Achievements of Fifteen Suffragists. McFarland. ISBN 9780786456475.
  8. ^ a b "Sue Shelton White | Entries | Tennessee Encyclopedia". tennesseeencyclopedia.net. Retrieved 2016-11-12.
  9. ^ Weiss, Elaine (2018). The Woman's Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote. Penguin. pp. 19–20, 57–58. ISBN 9780698407831.
  10. ^ Weiss, 2018 & p 154.
  11. ^ "Women's Suffrage Monument Unveiled - Story". Newschannel5.com. Retrieved 2016-08-27.
  12. ^ "Nashville's Newest Monument Celebrates State's Role In Women's Winning The Right To Vote". Nashville Public Radio. Retrieved 2016-08-27.
  13. ^ a b "Middlebrook received the 2018 Sue Shelton White Award — The CrimeSEEN Examiner News". Csenewsnow.com. Retrieved 2018-07-23.
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