Lucy Stone, by Sally G. McMillen

Among those credited with propelling the women’s movement forward in the 19th century, one name is often left off the list. Lucy Stone was a passionate and fearless orator, an abolitionist, and a proponent of women’s civil and property rights. But as McMillen shows, Stone was deliberately excluded by other women suffragettes for her support of the Fif­teenth Amend­ment which gave black men the right to vote. That exclusion had a lasting impact on her legacy. McMillen details Stone’s willingness to speak when others were silent, even in the face of ridicule and rejection, and her difficult relationships with other women who shared her goals. It is a portrait of persistence, but also of the bitter divides over race that stymied the path to equal rights for all in the 19th century.