Who was Jessie Daniel Ames?
Southwestern alum who was a national women's suffrage leader and anti-lynching advocate in the South
Jessie Daniel Ames, born Jessie Daniel, began her long legacy of working as a human rights leader in the South when her family moved to Georgetown in 1893 at the age of 10. She and her sisters attended the Ladies’ Annex to pursue an education. Eventually, she graduated in 1902 and married Roger Post Ames in 1905, moving out of Georgetown until his death in 1914. She then moved back to Georgetown to live with her mother and have support caring for her three children. She worked for the Georgetown Telephone Company, and being a businesswoman, she realized that she had the same right to vote on issues affecting her business as any businessman did. As a result, she organized the Georgetown Equal Suffrage League in 1916 and began her career as a leader in progressive social and political reform.
Before long, Ames worked as a state treasurer at Texas Equal Suffrage Association pushing for Texas to become the first Southern state to ratify the 19th amendment. Once the bill was passed for women to vote in primaries, Ames and her co-workers worked tirelessly to register 3,800 women in Williamson County to vote 17 days before the election in 1918. A year later, she founded the Texas chapter of the League of Women Voters and worked closely with state councils and committees regarding interracial commissions and women’s law reform. Her work with women’s rights in the South left a significant impact on the community that is still remembered and relevant today,
Briefly, Ames moved to Atlanta where she worked as the national director of the Woman’s Committee of the Committee on Interracial Cooperation (CIC). An issue of The Megaphone in 1929 titled, “Prominent Interracial Committeewoman To Be Here This Week” discusses Ames’ visit to Southwestern. The students described her words as “enlightening” and the attendance was “well worth the privilege.” The next issue the following week discusses another speech given by Ames to the Y.M.C.A and Y.W.C.A groups at Southwestern titled, “Mrs. Ames Speaks Here On Race Problem.” Ames remained very active within the Southwestern community as she focused on shedding light on the social justice work she was doing to the young people of Georgetown.
In 1930, Jessie Daniel Ames founded the Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching. She was the first white woman the speak out publicly against the lynching of African Americans. Her actions led to the decline of lynchings in the 30s and 40s and by 1937, national, state, and regional organizations endorsed antilynching platforms.
Ames is actively remembered in several ways on campus today. Her portrait hangs in the Women’s Studies Alcove, located on the third floor of the library. This space commemorates her advocacy for women’s rights and includes other prominent feminist figures that directly impacted Southwestern's history. She is also commemorated on campus through the Jessie Daniel Ames Lecture Series that was begun in 1995 by the Women’s Studies (later Feminist Studies) program. These commemorations keep the knowledge of her life’s work known and therefore remembered within.
Remembering who Ames was is significant to the generations of women who have graduated since. This emphasizes the importance of women’s voices on campus today as the legacy of women that came before fought hard for our rights and the rights of other minorities within the community.
Jessie Daniel Ames spoke up about issues that were controversial in the South and as a woman, she was able to make a difference despite her place also being in the minority. By advocating for both anti-lynching and women’s voting rights, she should continue to be commemorated as a civil rights leader with significant ties to the University and Georgetown.
