*The Women's Loyal Union, or WLU, was formed on this date in 1892 in New York. It started to advocate for women's rights and, most importantly, the racial injustices that came with being a Black Woman during Reconstruction.
WLU began with Maritcha Remond Lyons partnering with educator and activist Victoria Earle Matthews to host and organize a testimonial dinner in New York's Lyric Hall for the journalist and civil rights activist Ida B. Wells and her anti-lynching campaign. They raised funds and slowly founded the Women's Loyal Union of New York. Lyons spent most of her life dedicated to finding new ways, through education and advocacy, to stand up for women's rights and the racial injustices that came with being a Black Woman.
One of the many ways she served this cause was by advocating in a period where women, from a broad perspective, weren't given the same rights as their counterparts, one being the 15th Amendment. Black and white women had different intentions towards why voting was so important. Many white women were seen as oppressed wives and mothers who wanted the chance to involve themselves and challenge society's norms politically. Black women suffragist organizations wished to lift and empower their communities, which have been vilified for years. Many rival organizations nationwide, like the National Woman Suffrage Association and Northeastern Federation of Colored Women's Club.
Many southern suffragist organizations oppressed Black women organizations. After some time, the organization became a pathway for the well-known National Association of Colored Women (NACW). It was recognized for its intense resistance to the Color Line, which was a way of expressing the segregation that existed between the black and white communities and their anti-lynching work. The WLU's ideas not only advocated stopping lynching but also dismantled the untold truths of the unjust punishments blacks had to endure for crimes that weren't factual, mainly the false accusations of sexual harassment from Black men to white women.
