Thread by @ashtonpittman

NEW: For some, Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith's claim that a new voting rights bill would "undermine" the 19th Amendment was absurd.

For Black Mississippians, it recalled a time when white feminists not only excluded Black women, but used racism for advantage. 1/
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“As a woman in Congress right now, I am the beneficiary of the women who fought for women to have the right to vote. This (bill) would undermine all of this," Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith said last week as she announced her opposition to #HR1. 2/
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“If we want to talk about suffragists, that’s part of why #HR1 is necessary. Because if you feel like this is going to take away what suffragists did, well, HR 1 aims to move past that bc it was only for white women..."
—Arekia Bennett, @MSVotes 3/
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While Sen. Hyde-Smith claims #HR1 will "undermine" the work of suffragettes, The League of Women Voters, which a group of white suffragettes founded in 1920, says it is necessary to "protect" voting rights as state lawmakers work to restrict voting. 4/ mississippifreepress.org/10745/an-insul…

“I think her statement is an insult to women and to African Americans, first of all because she doesn’t say how. ... We know that the bill enhances the 19th Amendment & the Voting Rights Act of 1965."
—Martha Phillips, Mississippi League of Women Voters 5/ mississippifreepress.org/10745/an-insul…

In the 1890s, Black journalist Ida B. Wells often clashed with white fellow women's rights activists.

Even some who had shown sympathy to Black rights had begun using anti-Black racism to woo southerners to support prohibition—while ignoring lynchings. 6/ mississippifreepress.org/10745/an-insul…

In an 1890 interview, white women's rights activist Frances Willard said this:

“'Better whiskey & more of it’ is the rallying cry of great, dark-faced mobs. The safety of (white) women, of childhood, of the home, is menaced in a thousand localities." 7/ mississippifreepress.org/10745/an-insul…

While on a stage with Willard, Wells called out her hypocrisy & that of other white women who used racism to fight for their rights while turning a blind eye to lynching. 8/ mississippifreepress.org/10745/an-insul…

In front of the high-society crowd, Wells pulled out a copy of Willard’s racist interview & read her own words back to her—like her claim that the tavern is “the Negro’s center of power” & that “the colored race multiplies like the locusts of Egypt.” 9/
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Frances Willard had “unhesitatingly slandered the entire Negro race in order to gain favor with those who are hanging, shooting & burning Negroes alive,” Wells later said.

After Wells spilled the tea in front of the crowd, Willard was furious. 10/ mississippifreepress.org/10745/an-insul…

“It is not fair that a plantation Negro who can neither read or write should be entrusted with the ballot,” Frances Willard fumed to a London newspaper after.

Meanwhile, Ida B. Wells launched a London anti-lynching organization with British leaders. 11/
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Sen. Hyde-Smith has faced lynching-related controversies of her own over words she's used.

In 2018, while running against Mike Espy, who is Black, she praised a supporter this way: "If he invited me to a public hanging, I'd be on the front row." 12/ mississippifreepress.org/10745/an-insul…

Hyde-Smith's anti-HR 1 comments reminded Arekia Bennett of the senator's "public hanging" remark.

Bennett: "If a white woman like Cindy Hyde-Smith with all of the access in the world is saying she feels discriminated against, it’s really weird to me." 13/
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Sen. Hyde-Smith in another 2018 video: “And then they remind me that there’s a lot of liberal folks in those schools who maybe we don’t want to vote. Maybe we can make it just a little more difficult. And I think that’s a great idea." 14/
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Arekia Bennett: “If, after you say the most egregious thing I’ve heard in my life from any elected official & you still get re-elected with all that privilege & whiteness, you can then say that #HR1 takes away your rights as a citizen, I question who you think a citizen is.” 15/

The drafters of Mississippi’s Jim Crow constitution had their own ideas.

“I will agree that this is a government by the people and for the people, but what people? ... That is what we are here for today—to secure the supremacy of the white race." 16/ mississippifreepress.org/10745/an-insul…

During her remarks, Sen. Hyde-Smith falsely claimed #HR1 would overturn Mississippi's voter ID law.

She told a story about a woman who was a victim of voter impersonation at the ballot box and about a dead man voting.

I investigated that claim. 17/
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Turns out, Sen. Hyde-Smith's alleged voter impersonation story wasn't as recent as she made it sound.

It allegedly happened in the 90s. But there's no evidence to back it up bc the voter rolls are gone. It appears impossible to prove or disprove. 18/ mississippifreepress.org/10618/sen-hyde…

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