It took women more than 70 years of organizing, lobbying and fighting to secure the right to vote. We think we know the story of suffrage — Susan B. Anthony, Seneca Falls.

But in Georgia, the battle was waged under the guise of polite society. Women were tasked to uphold ideals like modesty, beauty, grace, charm and submission, so political organizing often happened at afternoon teas and in polite, yet pointed newspaper editorials.

"Let us remember that in Georgia, everyone can vote except aliens, criminals, children, insane, illiterate negroes, your mother and your wife," wrote suffragist Helen Shaw Harrold.

"[Women's suffrage] is by far the greatest danger that has threatened the South since the days of scalawag and carpetbag rule in reconstruction times," countered anti-suffragist and white supremacist Mildred Lewis Rutherford. "When the evil comes, it will be too late to regret it.

The 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote in 1920. But it took two more years for all Georgia women to get that right and many decades for the state to officially recognize it. Why?

Shame is The Woman tells the true story of Georgia suffragists and their opponents. And we look at how that fight more than a century ago still echoes today. Shame is The Woman, from Mercer University's Center for Collaborative Journalism and The Macon Newsroom, launches December 1st.

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