I have pictures to go along with this.....but, I still don't know how to download them on this forum, so I will email this to Teresa and maybe she will add them to this important message.
A reminder to all of us who have the freedom to do what these women did not.......
WHY WOMEN SHOULD VOTE
This is the story of our Grandmothers and Great-grandmothers; they lived only 90 years ago.
Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.
The women were innocent and defenseless, but they were jailed
nonetheless for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking
for the vote. And by the end of the night, they were barely alive.
Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's blessing
went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of
'obstructing sidewalk traffic.'
(http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj216/marshalette/ATT0000411.jpg)
(Lucy Burns)
(http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj216/marshalette/ATT000138.jpg)
They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above
her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping
for air.
(Dora Lewis)
(http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj216/marshalette/ATT0001920.jpg)
They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her
head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate,
Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack.
Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging,
beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.
Thus unfolded the 'Night of Terror' on Nov. 15, 1917,
when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his
guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because
they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right
to vote.
For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their
food--all of it colorless slop--was infested with worms.
(Alice Paul)
(http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj216/marshalette/ATT000169.jpg)
When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/suffrage/nwp/prisoners.pdf
(http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj216/marshalette/ATT000077.jpg)
So, refresh my memory. Some women won't vote this year because-
-why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work?
Our vote doesn't matter? It's raining?
Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO's new
movie 'Iron Jawed Angels.' It is a graphic depiction of the battle
these women waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling
booth and have my say. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder.
All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But the
actual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote.
Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege.
Sometimes it was inconvenient.
My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women's history,
saw the HBO movie, too. When she stopped by my desk to talk
about it, she looked angry. She was--with herself. 'One thought
kept coming back to me as I watched that movie,' she said.
'What would those women think of the way I use, or don't use,
my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not just
younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn.' The
right to vote, she said, had become valuable to her 'all over again.'
HBO released the movie on video and DVD I wish all history,
social studies and government teachers would include the movie in
their curriculum I want it shown on Bunco night, too, and anywhere
else women gather. I realize this isn't our usual idea of socializing,
but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think
a little shock therapy is in order.
It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn't make her crazy.
The doctor admonished the men: 'Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.'
Please, if you are so inclined, pass this on to all the women you know.
We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so
hard for by these very courageous women. Whether you vote democratic, republican or inpendent party - remember to vote.
History is being made.
:) :'(
Got the pictures on and you are so right.. We as women should exercise every right we have..and fight to keep them.
Teresa( the Political Junkie) ;)
Woodrow Wilson was a Democrat, think about that ladies
Frank,
I still am not sure it is a PARTY ISSUE.........I really think it is RIGHTS and altho I am a registered Democrat.....I do find myself
voting the MAN/WOMAN......and have found that I lean towards Republican.............
Politics is just a very nasty and dirty word as far as I am concerned....and a necessary EVIL.
Too bad we have to learn the hard way and ALMOST LOSE our humanness..................but, I have so much faith in the PEOPLE to do what is RIGHT..........that I just know we will (GIT ER DONE!!) as we Red-necks say..............I just hope that after
the fur flies...............and it is over, we all can look back and be proud of all we have done/not done to AMERICA.
Judy, I agree with what you say. I was only kidding about Woodrow Wilson, although he was in actual fact a Democrat, he didn't have total say over the voting rights issue. I wonder what it was like for the men and for that matter the women that were married to each other and the man was against woman voting. I am guessing they spent some bad nights together. It is difficult to comprehend that less than 100 years ago women did not have the right to vote, can you imagine telling Teresa or Sarah Palin they couldn't vote. That was a good post and very informative. THANKS
Frank... try telling me I can't do anything ...and see where it gets ya.. ;)