[MUSIC PLAYING] THELMA DALEY: Women were getting tired. They couldn’t own land. They couldn’t initiate a divorce. There was so many things denied of women, but they wanted to vote. BEVERLY SMITH: We saw Mary Church Terrell at the lead. The members of Delta Sigma Theta came together
As an organization and marched in support of White women in their effort to get the vote, even though they would not have that same right for years to come. Some other major suffragists didn’t want them in that march. BEVERLY SMITH: We were there because we
Wanted to make sure that we stood for the rights of others. The Suffragette Movement meant a beginning for Delta Sigma Theta. From that point on, we’d been very active in social action, in civil rights in this country and around the world. [CHEERING] THELMA DALEY: When Martin Luther King spoke,
I was in that march, but I was scared. I was frightened. I would not have been in that march if it had not been for Dr. Dorothy Irene Height, our 10th national president. They did not allow her to speak, but I’d look at her as really a giant in the Civil Rights movement.
BEVERLY SMITH: Our voice has always been strong. What’s wrong with my running for president of this country? It is time that other peoples in America besides White males running for the highest office in this land. BEVERLY SMITH: And we see the progress we’ve made for all women.
The name’s Mary McCleold Bethune, Patricia Roberts Harris, Ethel Payne, Wilmer Rudolph, Daisy Bates, Fannie Lou Hamer. They sacrificed. They gave themselves. They were ignored but spoke up anyway– all to make sure that we could own our vote and change society. [MUSIC PLAYING]
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