Suffrage Centennials

Back in the Middle Ages of the 20th century, women were universally obedient. They valued the state of pregnancy when patriarchy ruled the waves.

Now patriarchy still has its claws into bare skin, but more women are waking up. When I was young, the word Patriarchy wasn’t even mentioned. Nowadays most people have heard the word and how it’s waking up folks around the planet.

If Planet Earth goes down the tubes, the idea of patriarchy will be one of the arenas targeted.

Why bother? There’s a reason that SuffrageCentennials.com continues to publish since 2013.

We all have a stake in the future.

During 2023, SuffrageCentennials.com is supporting the action network of the ERA Coalition. We’re partners. Join us!

The year 2023 is the 100th anniversary of US women working on an amendment to the US Constitution for women’s equal rights.

Suffrage centennials are taking on more importance than ever before!  on Vimeo.

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For bookings and interviews, leave a message for Marguerite Kearns (855) toll free 553 3666.

2023 is the 100th year of US women working on behalf of an equal rights amendment to the US Constitution.

I think it’s terrific that the campaign is resumed now. Unless internalized oppression is part of the agenda ( and all of us play a part), chances are that a top-down social and economic system isn’t going to give up power easily. A shift has already taken place. Women are no longer satisfied accepting the role of second-class citizens and the bearer of offspring.

Will this happen this year? There are millions of us. And it’s a coalition increasingly becoming more determined!

We stand on the shoulders of those who have come before us. We carry on the work, and we pass a torch to the future of those who will continue it. One next step is chipping away at the internalized oppression that is almost invisible. I am aware of this. So are many others.

Suffrage Centennials observes the generations of US citizens who have been chipping away nonviolently at internalized oppression. We have been publishing since 2013.

by Marguerite Kearns

The 19th amendment to the US constitution in 1920 is attributed to the hard work, determination, and actions of tens of thousands of women who smiled and dialed and didn’t give up for generations. See https://billmoyers.com/story/the-mother-of-all-celebrations/

The so-called failure of the 100th anniversary to the US constitution didn’t come easy in the first place. Votes for all women. We can wax lyrically about the pandemic in 2020 and how US women are still considered second-class citizens. But let’s get real. There are many reasons to celebrate this enormous nonviolent accomplishment. In 2010, it appeared as if the US civil war would take over the nation’s attention in 2020, not the 100 years that American women have been voting.

In 2010 and for the next decade, a handful of highly motivated women and their allies persisted. I was one of them. We pounded on invisible drums until the word was spread, high and low, in and out. There wasn’t one face representing what many refer to as the first wave of the suffrage movement. There were hundreds of votes for women organizations at the turn of the 20th century. My grandmother Edna was among them. My mother was in the first generation of women who voted. She recruited her entire family to support women voting, as this website demonstrates. We have been publishing since 2009.

When I was ten years old, few in my elementary school ever heard the word “suffrage” or had any idea what it meant. I describe this in the book “An Unfinished Revolution: Edna Buckman Kearns and the Struggle for Women’s Rights.” It was published by SUNY Press in 2021. The first wave of US women’s suffrage leaders were aware that their struggle would be conducted in the midst of a slowly evaporating racist future.

We still live in a racist culture, although it’s substantially different than the one Edna Buckman Kearns faced when she smiled and dialed from the desk of her Rockville Centre home in 1915. See photo above.

The 2020 celebrations of the long and agonizing and miserable struggle to win the right to vote for US women may not have held a candle to other celebrations of noteworthy struggles to increase human and civil rights but we persisted. Sure, we’re still considered second-class citizens, but we’re standing on the shoulders of those who have come before us, we’re carrying on the work, and we’re passing a torch to the future. It has always been this way. And we support a front-line struggle stretching into the future.

Support an equal rights amendment to the US Constitution. In 2023 we’re observing the 100 years that US citizens have devoted to this task.

Make sure that you celebrate August 26th in some way. It’s Women’s Equality Day. It isn’t a national holiday yet, but it should be. Stay tuned!

Suffrage centennials didn’t come about by accident! on Vimeo.

The 2017 suffrage centennial celebration at the New York State Museum was magnificent. The completion of the draft of the equal rights amendment to the US Constitution was in 1923. This means another VERY important centennial ahead of us. We reach the 100th anniversary of US women busy on this task in 2023.

And we’re reaching the end of our patience here at SuffrageCentennials.com. Those volunteers who fainted at the computer met the deadline so that we can continue a little longer while waiting to hear about the results of the grant application recently submitted. We’ll never forget the accomplishments and sweet victories of the past decade when we were optimistic and our eyes were filled with delight during moments when we published regularly about the future ahead.

We’re partners in the ERA Coalition. Watch for our posts on SuffrageCentennials.com or go directly and sign up there: https://www.eracoalition.org

Continue to relive these moments by watching the videos associated with these times on Vimeo:

vimeo.com/kearnsmarguerite

One of many accomplishments of the past decade was the publication from SUNY Press (State University of New York) of the book, An Unfinished Revolution: Edna Buckman Kearns and the Struggle for Women’s Rights.

For bookings and interviews, leave a message for Marguerite Kearns (855) toll free 553 3666.

Who will carry the torch of freedom and equality into the future? We’re all ready. And we’re doing the work now, and we’re committed to the future. Social change does not happen overnight. It is incremental. It is layered. It is complicated. It is essential.

It’s clear that grassroots organizing makes a difference. Make a commitment to the passage of equal rights for all citizens. The list of exceptions is challenging the most patient of us activists who have committed ourselves to freedom and justice.

Join the ERA Coalition. It’s free. And the staff is waiting to hear from you.

We stand on the shoulders of those who have come before us. We carry on the tradition the best we can. And we pass a torch to the future.

Onward.

2023 and the ERA “natives”are getting restless

Suffrage Centennials has been publishing since 2013. Our work is never finished.