of the Equal Rights Association in May 1869, Douglass tried to persuade the woman suffragists that voting rights for blacks must be won immediately, while women could afford to wait. "When women because they are women are dragged from their homes and hung upon lampposts, .....then they will have the urgency to obtain the ballot," said Douglass. One of the women in the crowd cried out, "Is that not also true about black women?" "Yes, yes," Douglass replied, "but not because she is a woman but because she is black." The women in the audience were not convinced by Douglass's argument, and some of them even spoke out against black suffrage. Douglass's relationship with the woman suffragists eventually healed, but women would not receive the right to vote until 1920. The campaign for state ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment was successful. On March 30, 1870, President Grant declared that the amendment had been adopted. Later, at the last official meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society, Douglass spoke gratefully about the new rights blacks had won. "I seem to be living in a new world," he said. While thanking all the men and women who had struggled for so long to make this new world possible, he modestly omitted his own name. However, no one had fought harder for black rights than Douglass. By 1870, he could look proudly upon some of the fruits of his labors. Between 1868 and 1870, the southern states were readmitted to the Union, and large numbers of blacks were elected to the state legislatures. Blacks also won seats in Congress, with Hiram Revels of Mississippi becoming the first black senator and Joseph Rainey of South Carolina being the first black to enter the House of Representatives. In 1870, Douglass was asked to serve as editor of a newspaper based in Washington, D.C., whose goal was to herald the progress of blacks throughout the country. Early on, the paper, the New National Era, experienced financial difficulties, and...
