Celebrating the 19th Amendment: After the March

 Celebrating the 19th Amendment: 

After the March

By 1917, Alice Paul and Lucy Burns had organized a new, more militant suffrage organization: The National Women's Party. In January 1917, the NWP set up a silent picket outside the White House gates. Suffragists were frustrated by the lack of results after years of meetings. They decided to use the White House building as a stage to influence the man inside. The "Silent Sentinels" wanted to make it impossible for the President to enter or leave the White House without encountering a sentinel bearing some device pleading the suffrage cause."

"To ask for freedom for women is not a crime. Suffrage prisoners should not be treated as criminals." Arrested over and over, Alice Paul, Lucy Burns and others went on hunger strike and were force fed  by tubes shoved down their throats.

Kaiser Wilson: Have you forgotten your sympathy for the poor Germans because they were not self-governed? 20,000,000 American women are not self-governed." The banners compared the president to the German emperor. The suffragists wanted to point out the hypocrisy on the part of President Wilson to support the cause of freedom in WWI but not support the freedom of women at home. Shortly after this photo is taken, on August 13, 1917, a crowd begins to taunt and intimidate the suffragists. Some people are pelting the women with eggs and tomatoes! They tear the banners from women's hands and rip them up. The women make more, only to have those taken as well. Nevertheless, they persisted! 

August 26, 2020: Women's Equality Day. "We did it! hooray!" Susanna celebrates the 100th anniversary of the 19th-amendment. 

While Susanna is happy, she's heard there's still work to do. "Addy told me many women like her can't vote. Anita can't vote either because she's an immigrant and poor! My guardian tells me all women didn't get the right to vote until Melody's time. I don't know this girl Melody. I guess I have to go there next and find out what happened!" 

Alice Paul paused to drink a glass of grape juice, sew the final stars on her suffrage flag and then got to work on an equal rights amendment. It still has not been passed as a Constitutional amendment. There is still work to do and Susanna is proud to grow up in a time when people are (still) fighting for their rights. She knows the future will be different, if only she can get there.

 Yoohoo Luciana! We need your spaceship!

Thanks to:

Hook and Loop Pennants  for the felt pennant 

National Women's Party

A Scrap of Suffrage History National Museum of American History

After the March film