Texas • 1910s–1960s

Christia Adair

Race, gender & suffrage

Role-play summaryI went door to door for women’s suffrage in Texas and saw how race and sex were used to silence people. I would argue voting rights must be expanded and protected for all citizens.

What forces are at play?

Adair’s experience sits at the intersection of two voting-rights struggles. The Nineteenth Amendment prohibited denying the vote on account of sex, but it did not dismantle the poll taxes, white primaries, intimidation, and other Jim Crow barriers that continued to suppress Black voters in Texas and across the South. For Black women, winning women’s suffrage therefore did not automatically mean being able to cast a meaningful ballot.

How can this shape elections?

In a one-party political system, exclusion from registration or from the dominant party’s primary can matter as much as exclusion from the general election. This role asks participants to notice how several barriers can overlap: race, gender, local election rules, economic costs, and intimidation can all shape who actually participates and whose interests officeholders must take seriously.

Carry these questions into the activity

What rule, barrier, or source of power matters most from this person’s point of view?
Who gains political voice — and who loses it — because of the way the election system works here?