Suffrage Centennials

Opposition raised its head generations ago when women got together and decided they wanted to vote. Their nonviolent strategy took generations, but finally the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution passed in 1920. During the 1980s the opposition was resurgent. I remember hearing one man say: “We started having problems after we gave the women the right to vote.” There have been many attempts to eliminate the opposition. Now it is focused on the draft ERA or Equal Rights Amendment.

And as we noted, no one GAVE women the right to vote. It was a goal of women volunteers over generations.

This year, 2023, is the 100th year that women have been working nonviolently for an equal rights amendment. It is a reform, not a major digression. It is worth supporting. It would straighten out the mess the top-down social and economic structure has made of gender relations. But keep in mind that it is a reform, not the result of a recognition of dramatic changes that has resulted in a new direction.

There is progress. No doubt about that. But it can be reversed in an instant.

The battle over abortion rights is another example of something US residents thought was permanent. The US Supreme Court majority decided it was merely a reform that should be eliminated. And it happened. Right before our eyes.

This is what happens to reform initiatives. They may represent efforts of many in charge to make sure that top-down structures remain in place. But they have no status relative to future efforts.

Will an equal rights amendment be another example of a reform that can be overturned in an instant?

Let’s see.

SuffrageCentennials.com has been publishing since 2013.

A poll commissioned by Ms. Magazine predicts that an equal rights amendment to the US Constitution, in addition to abortion rights, will be important and a potent combination during the 2024 national election.

It took generations of constant grassroots and nonviolent organizing to win the right for women to vote in the United States. As US women noted, the right to an abortion that had been permanently established in the US Constitution, demonstrated for millions that the matter represented a reform, not a guarantee.

Patriarchy and a top-down social system are attempting to keep the status of women and others as second class by viewing the matters of an equal rights amendment and abortion rights as reforms rather than guarantees.

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

This year, 2023, we’ve made progress in inching forward so that it’s finally realistic to have an equal rights amendment in the US Constitution. I remember when few people had ever heard of blogs or the ERA when I started communicating about this over a decade ago. I can still see the puzzled expressions on folks’ faces when I raised the possibility of a different type of communication. And blogging was once a potent and effective way to move social change into the far reaches of the universe.

“Onward,” I said as a closing to my email communications for a decade. I’ve witnessed so many changes in communication since then.

SuffrageCentennials.com has lasted through 2023. The world is very different now, and others are preparing to pick up the slack. Now we’re part. of the ERA Coalition that’s persisting and keeping the goal of an equal rights amendment to the US Constitution alive.

SuffrageCentennials.com has been publishing since 2013. Ten years. Not bad!

We’re supporting the 100 years that US women have been working for an equal rights amendment to the US Constitution during 2023.

Until the Spirit of 1776 suffrage campaign wagon is safely installed as a “permanent” feature in the New York State Museum, Suffrage Wagon News Channel will continue publishing.

Let’s keep our eyes on the prize.

It’s bad news for the passage of an equal rights amendment for the US Constitution?

Perhaps you noticed this year’s hottest July on record.

And the predictions about the future are grim. It will get worse.

Why? Because we’re engaged with those who adore more violence than the sacrifices associated with toning down our standards of living.

We live in a world where violence is king for some people with social status and big bank accounts.

They don’t care about climate change or any of those so-called issues that some individuals and organizations are bothering to even think about. They laugh in your face if you dare mentioning that Planet Earth is going down the tubes.

So add “climate change” to your concerns. Our future depends on it.

SuffrageCentennials.com has been publishing since 2013.

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!