03/30/2026
On Wednesday, March 25, Professor Mecke Nagel (Philosophy) delivered a 250th Anniversary speech as a Sandwich Seminar. Her presentation, “Ethics, Empathy, and Women’s Political Engagement,” focused on American women’s participation in responding to the Founders.
From Abigail Adams, to Elizabeth Cady Stanton, white women protested the structural exclusion of women.
1848 Declaration of Sentiments became the rallying cry for women’s suffrage, but working class women, Black women, and Seneca women (specifically) were not invited.
Nagel foregrounded Black women’s agency in connecting abolitionist struggles with suffrage and emancipation, and noted the role of Frederick Douglass as a woman’s rights supporter and principled endorsement of suffrage.
The 15th Amendment led to final split along racial fault lines, with White elite women (Stanton, Anthony) in favor of opportunism vs. Black women (Sojourner Truth, Francis Harper) and Douglass promoting a principled, ethical campaign for suffrage for all
Nagel then described this history as replicated in the 20th century birth of feminism; white women drawn to single issue (e,g, National Organization of Women); Black activists such as Pauli Murray, Loretta Ross, favoring intersectional approach (race, gender) to tackle injustice.
A Q&A session followed Nagel’s presentation.