Today is Women's Equality Day. It marks the 88th anniversary of the day women finally won the right to vote in the U.S.
Hillary Rodham Clinton's speech tonight should make this day that much more memorable. The video clip below of the Great Suffrage Parade of 1913 is from Iron Jawed Angels, and the text is an excerpt from a Women's History Resource Guide over at the Library of Congress. Like they say, if you want to keep a people disempowered, you deprive them of the knowledge of their history.
Remembering the Woman Suffrage Parade of 1913:
MOB HURTS 300 SUFFRAGISTS
On Monday, March 3, 1913, lawyer Inez Milholland Boissevain, clad in a white cape and riding a white horse, led the great women's suffrage parade down Pennsylvania Avenue in the nation's capital. Behind her stretched a long procession, including nine bands, four mounted brigades, three heralds, more than 20 floats and more than 5,000 marchers. Women from countries that had enfranchised women held the place of honor in the first section of the procession. . .
Women were jeered, tripped, grabbed, shoved, and many heard "indecent epithets" and "barnyard conversation." Instead of protecting the parade, the police "seemed to enjoy all the ribald jokes and laughter, and part participated in them." One policeman remarked that the women should stay at home where they belonged. The men in the procession heard shouts of "Henpecko" and "Where are your skirts?" As one witness explained, "There was a sort of spirit of levity connected with the crowd. They did not regard the affair very seriously."
But to the women, the event was very serious. The Chicago Tribune noted that Helen Keller "was so exhausted and unnerved by the experience in attempting to reach a grandstand ... that she was unable to speak later at [Constitution Hall]." Two ambulances "came and went constantly for six hours, always impeded and at times actually opposed, so that doctor and driver literally had to fight their way to give succor to the injured." . . . read more . . .
Hillary Clinton Feminist Politics Women's History Gender Suffrage Parade News Dissenting Women
