The 1913 suffrage centennial events in Washington, DC March 1-3, 2013 will have people participating from all over the nation. I can’t be part of it, but I’m “there” in spirit, as is Grandmother Edna Kearns and tens of thousands of our ancestors. The 1913 parade was a visual representation of decades of work on the local, state, and national levels, and this weekend’s centennial parade on Sunday, March 3, 2013 represents the vision of the tens of thousands of grassroots suffrage activists that it took to win the vote for women. They passed the torch to successive generations of activists, and they’re showing up in Washington this weekend.
Grandmother Edna knew that the story had to be preserved, not only for American history but also for us today. Edna sent back reports of the 1913 parade to New York City metropolitan newspapers. Here’s a selection in her own words: LINK. She reported how the marchers were slapped, insulted, and abused as they marched in the streets.
Stay up to date with suffrage stories from Grandmother Edna and news of the suffrage movement from Suffrage Wagon News Channel.
3 Responses
I can barely remember what I did a month ago, let alone what my grandmother did in March 100 years ago. Amazing. You make this so personal, which is the problem with this part of history. It was never made very personal. The way my junior high teacher presented it, some nice guys got together with some suffrage leaders and they worked out a deal. Yeah. Right. Not that a lot of people busted their humps for a very long time.
Grandmother Edna must be very proud of you 🙂 You’re continuing her work in your own way and I’m sure the next generation of women will be very appreciative of your work, just as I am. It must have taken a real courage back then to be the voice for women’s right and my sincere respect and tribute goes out to your grandmother for that.
Sadly I wasn’t able to support this worthwhile parade as I live in the UK. I would be interested in finding out how the parade went and it would be quite something to compare the comments made by Edna Kearns with that of a modern day reporter observing the events of last week. I would like to think there wouldn’t have been any jostling and harassing as we (in the Western world) find it quite ‘normal’ for women to vote. I wonder if such a parade or demonstration were to take place in the Arab world, what the attitudes and feelings would be?