1888

Frederick Douglass, who had been the only man at Seneca Falls in 1848 to support full women's suffrage, remained a vocal advocate throughout his life. His 1888 speech to the International Council of Women was among the most powerful endorsements of women's voting rights given by any major American figure. He died in 1895 hours after attending a women's suffrage rally.

Spelman Seminary in Atlanta, founded in 1881 to educate formerly enslaved Black women, received an expanded charter and grew into a full collegiate institution during the late 1880s, becoming Spelman College. The institution embodied the conviction that Black women deserved rigorous higher education at a time when both race and gender barred them from most universities. Spelman became the oldest historically Black college for women in the United States.