I don't know how long ago I registered to vote but I have voted for many, many years and have always enjoyed the privilege of learning about the candidates and issues then expressing my support in whichever direction by casting a ballot during the elections. I know that women before me worked hard to garner my right to vote. I'll be the first to admit I don't really know details of the women's sufferage - only that it happened. Way before my day. Far away from my life.
Sometimes little things catch your attention and you just have to look a bit further. So is the case with an email received from a friend. Something directed me to look at the images, read the message ... as a norm, I have images disabled in my email program. Just far too much ugly stuff coming through. These images aren't ugly, they are soft images, of soft women with strong spirit. Women who endured much to bring forth my right to vote, the right of all women to 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.'
They beat Lucy Burns (above), chained 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 (above) into a dark cell, 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. 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.
When one of the leaders, Alice Paul (above), 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.
Library of Congress document (PDF) on event. 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?
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I'll vote as often as possible and strive to be as informed as possible on matters before me on the ballot. Too many gave too much for me to throw away this privilege.
