From collection Candidates
Margaret L. Watson was a candidate for City Secretary of Beaumont, Texas in 1896. She first expressed interest in running for the office in February of that year. Both black and white men worked on her campaign, although Watson herself viewed the Black vote as a problem in the state. Watson was secretary of the Texas Equal Rights Association as well as the recording secretary of the Texas Equal Suffrage Association. From 1895 onward Watson spoke out in public on the suffrage question, often representing the Texas Equal Rights Association at various state conventions and meeting of other organizations. In 1895 Watson spearheaded a petition campaign to raise the age of consent for Texas girls from 13 years of age to 18. Such campaigns, raising the age of consent in most states, had been the work of suffragists and members of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union from the 1880s onwards.
