THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, August 26, 1995 TAG: 9508260411
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY PAUL SOUTH, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: MANTEO LENGTH: Long : 106 lines
Her family remembers the late Mary Meekins Basnight's steaming pots of clam chowder and pans of fried fish.
``When my husband took me to meet his family, she was the first person I met. She was unique to say the least,'' said Dare County Board of Elections Director Lynda Midgett, Basnight's niece by marriage.
But history remembers Mary ``Tom'' Meekins Basnight as the first woman to cast a vote in Dare County.
She was allowed to vote under the 19th Amendment, ratified 75 years ago today. In a simple 39 words, it granted women's suffrage.
In a 1964 newspaper article, the late Basnight recalled the memorable event. Her husband Tom was a shipwright, based in Norfolk. Before moving to Hampton Roads to join him in 1920, she cast an absentee ballot for President Woodrow Wilson and North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Cameron Morrison.
The amendment took effect that year, although it was not ratified by the North Carolina General Assembly until 1921.
While mainland North Carolina and the nation was swept up in the suffrage movement of the early 20th century, no organized activity was evident on the Outer Banks.
``As far as I can tell, there were individual sympathizers of the suffrage movement, but there was no organized effort,'' said Wynne Dough, curator of the Outer Banks History Center on Roanoke Island. ``The geography and the culture of the place made it near impossible for any kind of organized effort.''
Dough said that Outer Banks communities, divided by geography and tradition and located on islands, were insulated in many ways from the world.
``Each community had its own sub-dialect, its own churches, its own activities,'' Dough said. ``Because of those community rivalries, it would have been difficult to organize anything.''
Additionally, state laws that were designed to keep blacks from voting also worked against white men and women on the Outer Banks.
``There was still a literacy requirement then in North Carolina,'' Dough said. ``There were a great many people on the Outer Banks who could not read and write, so they couldn't have voted if they wanted to.''
While there was little suffrage activity in the coastal areas, North Carolina was one of the hotbeds of the suffrage movement.
The first discussions on granting women the right to vote came in 1868, at the state's post-war constitutional convention, but the issue died.
In 1884, a North Carolina woman, Margaret Richardson, attended the National Woman Suffrage Association convention in Washington, D.C. But since there was no organized suffrage movement in the state, Richardson attended solely as an observer. In 1894, a chapter organized in Asheville, but it had only four members.
Still, in 1897, a suffrage bill was introduced in the state Senate, but it failed. And in 1899, Helen Morris Lewis ran unsuccessfully for water superintendent in Asheville.
It was not until 1913 that a state women's suffrage organization was formed. By 1914, the Equal Suffrage League of North Carolina had chapters in New Bern, Greenville, Goldsboro and Washington.
Many prominent men, including Justice Walter B. Clark of the North Carolina Supreme Court, jumped on the suffragist bandwagon. And by 1915, legislation was introduced in both houses of the General Assembly. U.S. Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan went to Raleigh to push for the female franchise.
In an address to lawmakers, Bryan said women's suffrage was on its way and that he considered women qualified to vote. In his speech, Bryan pointed out that the majority of inmates in state jails were men, while the majority of churchgoers were women.
``If the women have sense enough to keep out of the penitentiary and morals enough to go to church, who will say they are not fit to go to the polls?''
Despite Bryan's efforts, the bill died in committee.
The anti-suffrage movement fought the bill by pointing out that if women were given the vote, blacks would be next.
``Men of the South: Heed not the song of the suffrage siren! Seal your ears against her vocal wiles. For no matter how sweetly she may proclaim the advantages of female franchise, remember that woman suffrage means the reopening of the entire Negro suffrage question; loss of state's rights; and another period of Reconstruction horrors, which will introduce a set of female carpetbaggers as bad as their male prototypes of the sixties.''
The anti-suffrage movement was largely unorganized in North Carolina, according to the North Carolina Historical Review.
By 1920, a one-time opponent of suffrage, Gov. T.W. Bickett, urged legislators to accept the inevitable. But lawmakers, including Beaufort County's Lindsay Warren and Bertie County's Wayland Mitchell, fought suffrage even though ratification was all but assured. Warren, with support from his eastern colleagues, pushed through a bill that would delay action on the amendment until the 1921 regular session. The vote to table the amendment carried, 25-23. But in 1921, the General Assembly passed the amendment.
Now, 75 years later, 18 women serve on elective or appointive boards in Dare County alone, and that does not include a those who serve on other county advisory committees. Two serve as town managers.
But women have always played a leadership role in Outer Banks communities, Dough said.
``Many of the women on the Outer Banks were teachers, and they were held in high esteem in the communities,'' Dough said. ``And while women were not involved in the suffrage movement on the Outer Banks, they were instrumental in the development of a library system; they drove the bookmobiles, and engaged in other types of community service.
``Ben Dixon McNeill, in his book, `The Hatterasman,' argued that Hatteras Island was a largely matriarchal society, because the men were out on the water earning a living. Before the amendment, they may not have had the vote, but they were a force to be reckoned with.''
KEYWORDS: SUFFRAGE HISTORY by CNB