Native American women and the 19th Amendment

Most Native American women didn’t earn the right to vote with the 19th Amendment. Horizonte host Jose Cardenas spoke with Diane Humetewa, Judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona, about how the women suffragist movement helped energize the fight for Native American voting rights. 

It’s the 100th anniversary for women’s right to vote but Humetewa took this time to reflect. She explains that this anniversary just reminds her of the fight natives had to vote. Both Native American women and men were not given the right to vote until four years later. Despite this, Humetewa believes this movement spurred Natives into action on citizenship and voting. It was influential, regardless of its faults.

She reflects on the fact that a lot of Natives went to fight in the war and would come back, not able to vote in their state elections. It took two rounds of Arizona Supreme Court Cases, 20 years apart, to achieve that right.

“We tend to lose sight of that history and what it took to make those changes.”