So 19th Amendment, Happy 90th Anniversary and shit. Sorry I forgot a gift, but I have voted in every national election since I turned 18, so thanks for that. Sure black men got the right to vote in 1870, I was kind of pissed about that. Not that they shouldn't get to vote but fifty years? It took fifty years to come to with the conclusion that maybe women should get the vote too? I guess I know where I stand in the ole hierarchy.
Still, I have to give mad props to Woodrow Wilson, thanks for not thinking we will destroy the nation with our "opinions". Thank you for not recommending we get like, half a vote or something stupid. Thank you also to the House of Reps, but Senate, seriously Senate, fuck you. Thanks also to the men who voted against those anti-suffrage Senators up for reelection in 1918. We couldn't have done it without you, literally, because we could not vote. Thank you for believing in your daughters and wives and sisters or maybe you just didn't want to get locked out of the honey pot. I guess it doesn't matter why you did it because you did, and it was a good thing.
I need to also say Happy Anniversary to the bitches that made this happen. It's easy to ask for things now, I have grown up used to demanding that things be more equitable or pointing out when it isn't. But for you guys? How unequivocally brave to demand to be heard. Taking a stand probably resulted in a lot of uncomfortable family arguments and people saying crappy thing to you and even threatening you. Thank you for taking this first, most important step that helped us to secure everything else later through the voting process. Thank you for bringing our voices to the debates, for allowing us women a chance to shape the nation in which we live. Thank you for making me a patriot in the truest sense, for making me believe that we can always be better and do better.
So thank you Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Lydia Taft, Genevieve Clark, Frances Wright and Ernestine Rose. You have my most earnest gratitude Margaret Fuller, Mary Ann M'Clintock, Lucy Stone, Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis, Abby Kelley Foster, and Susan B. Anthony. To you Matilda Joslyn Gage, Sojourner Truth, Isabella Beecher Hooker, Julia Ward Howe, Carrie Chapman Catt, Alice Paul, Victoria Woodhall, Belva Lockwood and Lucy Burns, I am indebted for your efforts. You are names now but you were real people, who did something important.
Happy Anniversary 19th Amendment.
Oh Geez, I forgot to send a card....again. Thanks for reminding us Ruby, not on a Tuesday - but on a Wednesday.
ReplyDeleteMy hope is that we accept the baton which has been passed to us and we don't fall down, the way I did in my one and only relay race in the 6th grade track meet.
a reminder that not only do we need more women to vote... we need more women to vote for!
ReplyDeleteshared this on FB yesterday :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dPF0SGh_PQ
Up here, we got the vote in 1918, too, but we weren't "persons" until 1929. And then the world fell into a Great Depression. I can only assume this is a terrible coincidence.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite voting story involves my grandma. She was old school, and lived with an abusive man for most of her life. When she got away, and went to live on her own in a senior's complex, it only dawned on her at the advanced age of 70 something that she actually possessed the right to vote (something my grandfather convinced her she was too stupid to do). She was so thrilled that she took it upon herself to mobilize all her old lady friends to get out and rock the vote. I think of her when I'm voting, every damn chance I get.
This makes me want to threaten somebody with my crow bar.
ReplyDeleteNote to those who do not know me:
This means I'm happy and in a state of rejoice.