Fw: A history lesson - a very important reminder!

[BEVERLY JANOWITZ-PRICE]

 

Peace,

 

Beverly

----- Original Message -----

From: Shannon S

To: vccssmsn

Sent: Sunday, April 13, 2008 8:36 AM

Subject: Fw: A history lesson - a very important reminder!

 

>            >
>             This is the story of our Grandmothers, and Great-grandmothers,
                (And Mothers....)
>             as they lived only 90 years ago.  It was not until 1920 that
>             women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.  The
>             women who made it so were innocent and defenseless. 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 Burn, 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 into a dark cell,
>             smashed her head against an iron bed and  knocked her out
>             cold. Her cellmate, 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, 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.
>
>             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. I am  ashamed to say I
>             needed the reminder.
>
>             All these years later, voter registration is still my passion.
>             But the actual act of voting had become less personal for me,
>             more rote. Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation
>             than a privilege. Sometimes it was inconvenient.
>
>             My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women's history,
>             saw the HBO movie, too. When she stopped by my desk to talk
>             about it, she looked angry. She was--with herself. 'One
>             thought kept coming back to me as I watched that movie,' she
>             said. 'What would those women think of the way I use--or don't
>             use--my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not
>             just younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn.'
>
>             The right to vote, she said, had become valuable to her 'all
>             over again.'
>
>             HBO released the movie on video and DVD. I wish all history,
>             social studies and government teachers would include the movie
>             in their curriculum. I want it shown on Bunco night, too, and
>             anywhere else women gather. I realize this isn't our usual
>             idea of socializing, but we are not voting in the numbers that
>             we should be, and I think a little shock therapy is in order.
>
>             It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to
>             persuade a  psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that
>             she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is
>             inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong,
>             he said, and brave. That didn't make her crazy.
>
>             The doctor admonished the men: 'Courage in women is often
>             mistaken for insanity.'
>
>             Please, if you are so inclined, pass this on to all the women
>             you know.
>             We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought
>             so hard for by these very courageous women . Whether you vote
>             democratic, republican or independent party - remember to
>             vote.
>
>              History is being made.  And you are making it!
>
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