The second youngest daughter of Cassius M. and Mary Jane Warfield Clay, Laura Clay devoted her life to woman suffrage and other women’s rights on both national and state levels. She served in several capacities in the National American Woman Suffrage Association and was founder and president of the Kentucky Equal Rights Association. Citing the primacy of states in determining whether women should be able to vote, she rejected the federal amendment approach in favor of individual state amendments in the final years before the Nineteenth Amendment was passed. Despite her states rights argument, her position effectively restricted or prevented black woman suffrage in the southern states. Her racial bias distanced her from her old suffrage colleagues and tainted her legacy within the movement.