BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY : AFRICAN AMERICAN " MARGARETTA FORTEN " WAS A SUFFRAGIST AND ABOLITIONIST AND ONE OF THE BRAVE BLACK WOMEN : GOES INTO THE " HALL OF BLACK GENIUS "

 BLACK    SOCIAL   HISTORY                                                                                                                                                                                                     Margaretta Forten

Margaretta Forten (1806-1875) was an African-American suffragist and abolitionist.^[1][2] Her parents, Charlotte Vandine Forten and James Forten, were abolitionists, and her father founded the American Anti-Slavery Society, which did not allow women to be members.^[3] In 1833, Margaretta, Charlotte, and Margaretta's sisters Sarah and Harriet co-founded the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society with fourteen other women.^[3][4] Margaretta often served as recording secretary or treasurer of the Society, as well as helping to draw up its organizational charter and serving on its educational committee.^[4][5] She offered the Society's last resolution, which praised the post-civil war amendments as a success for the anti-slavery cause.^[3] The Society distinguished itself at the time as the first of its kind in the United States to be biracial.^[6] Although the Society was predominantly white, historian Janice Sumler-Lewis claims the efforts of the Forten women in its key offices enabled it to reflect a black abolitionist perspective that oftentimes was more militant.^[7]

Margaretta toured and gave speeches in favor of women's suffrage, as well as helping petition drives for the cause.^[1][3][8] She also worked as a teacher, teaching at a school run by Sarah Mapps Douglass in the 1840s, and opening her own school in 1850.^[2]