February 6, 2017- Robert Purvis (1810-1898) #VRABlackHistory
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In honor of Black History Month, all month long we will be sharing the legacies and stories of the heroes, sheroes, and events in the fight for Black suffrage on social media under the hashtag #VRABlackHistory. Follow us on Twitter (@VRAmatters) to share your own facts.
Today we honor Robert Purvis, a Black man who lost his voting rights in the early 1800’s in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. On March 14, 1838, Purvis submitted a petition to fight for his and 40,000 other Black Philadelphians’ voting rights in response to a new state constitutional amendment that restricted suffrage to only White men.