WHY WOMEN SHOULD VOTE
This is the story of our Grandmothers and Great-Grandmothers; they lived only 90 years ago. Don't ever forget the sacrifices that were made by them so that we women today have a voice!
Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.
This is the story of our Grandmothers and Great-Grandmothers; they lived only 90 years ago. Don't ever forget the sacrifices that were made by them so that we women today have a voice!
Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.
(Lucy Burns above)
By the end of the night, they were barely alive as forty prison guards wielding clubs and with their warden's blessing, went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of obstructing sidewalk traffic.They beat Lucy Burns, and then continued to chain her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air.
They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, as they smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cell mate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack from the abuse she endured.Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking these 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!
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
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 when casting "my vote". I am ashamed to say that I needed that reminder of what my Mother's before me fought for so that one day we would be treated equal.
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 when casting "my vote". I am ashamed to say that I needed that reminder of what my Mother's before me fought for so that one day we would be treated equal.
*Please use your right on November 4th, 2008. Honor those who fought for you to have this right~ and remember, NEVER take it for granted~ SJP
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3 comments:
good post ..Keep up the good word.Hope you don't mind--copied it for an email!
I would never mind~ Spread the word! Thank you for stopping by and come back soon! ;)
very moving,,,made me cry but also gives me faith and hope that one day we will win & truily be heard,,thanks to you and puma's everywhere,,,remember what hillary said,,,go don't stop!!!
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