**Author’s note: I’ve heard it said on more than one occasion that the current equal rights movement is similar to that of the plight of women in this country before the 1920s. As my great great grandmother was a teenager during one of the most troubling and horrifying times for women in the United States, I can tell you, her story is nothing less than a tragedy turned miracle. I can only pray that the current movement learns from those women, and that we, as the LGBT+ community, can enjoy the same outcome. For those of you who don’t know much about the Women’s Rights movement, allow me to relate some of the history my maternal progeny experienced first hand.
If you think its tough being gay in the 21st century, you couldn’t have survived as a woman before 1920. Women back then, were more or less, still considered property. It wasn’t until one group of women stepped up and said, enough is enough. Suffragists began picketing the White House during the Wilson Administration, stating emphatically that President Woodrow Wilson was against women. This, of course, came after they protested his campaign for president and his election. Many of you remember people like Susan B. Anthony, Joan of Arc, and Lady Godiva as popular icons of Women’s Liberation, but do you remember Lucy Burns? She was a friend of my great great grandmothers during the late 1910s, and was one of 33 women who were later imprisoned for their protest of Woodrow Wilson. She (great great grandmother) wasn’t with them, she was fighting her own battles in rural west Tennessee, but their story is one my great grandmother remembered well.
Lucy Burns, Dora Lewis, Alice Paul, and Pauline Adams were all members of the group of protesters arrested and imprisoned for "obstructing sidewalk traffic." Under the guidance and blessing of the warden, 40 full grown prison guards (all men of course) wielding clubs went on a rampage against those 33 women. They beat Lucy Burns within inches of death, 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 repeatedly, and knocked her out cold. Her cell-mate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead. She began screaming for help, begging someone to help her. She died of a heart attack, while trying to revive her lifelong friend. Additional affidavits and sworn testimonials from the prisoners and guards, describe the 40 men grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women. Thus began what is now known as the "Night of Terror", Novemember 15, 1917, when the warden of 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 many weeks, the only food they were allowed was a bucket of colorless slop. One guard stated that he remembered feeling sorry for them, as "the slop was often cold and infested with worms". While he stated that he "hated what was being done" he "had no choice but to follow orders." I wonder who was holding a gun to his head and making him kick a dying woman? 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. After the press leak, the women were released, but were admonished to "give up their protest before something worse happened to them." This did not stop them. Alice Paul and her band of followers continued their march and protest. Woodrow Wilson even went so far as to pressure a Washington psychiatrist to declare Mrs. Paul, clinically insane, so that she would be permanently institutionalized. The good doctor refused Wilson’s demands and turned his story to the press. He said, "Alice Paul is strong, and brave. That doesn’t make her crazy. Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity." Bravo, Doc!
On August 18, 1920, after leading protests against anti-suffrage Senators, these amazing women saw the fruits of their determination come to pass with the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the United States constitution. It was signed on August 26, 1920, by Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby. Tennessee, my home state, was the last state required for the ratification of the amendment, and my great great grandmother was one of the women who led the charge in making that happen. Rosie Mae Fowler, my great grandmother, voted in her last election, just after her 89th birthday, in 2004. She subsequently passed away from complications from Alzheimer’s 3 years later. I had the privilege of being with her, as she cast her final vote. When I asked her what she thought about people who didn’t vote, she said "Jason, many women, some of which were close family friends, were tortured and killed so that *I* could stand behind a curtain and flip a switch." She then went on to talk about how it amazed her at the number of people, especially women, who didn’t exercise their right to vote. She said, "I’ll never understand, as long as I live, why people don’t stand up and make their opinion heard. Voting is the easiest way to do it. We don’t have to fight to be heard anymore, because Lucy, Dora, and their friends, already did that."
I look back on her story now, and the stories of those like her, and I wonder, would I be willing to do what they did to obtain my rights? Complacency is a disease within the LGBT community, a disease that is preventing us from making the necessary changes for equality. I wonder how many young members of our community take for granted their right to vote? Or their right to go to a club? Or walk down the street? Do they know what happened at Stonewall? Have they heard of Harvey Milk? Do they know what has been done and how many people have lost their lives, bean beaten, and imprisoned to give them the freedoms they now enjoy? How can they not care? If you want to see change people, you’ve got to do what it takes to make it happen. Learn from the suffragists, follow in their footsteps. Never give up, never give in. We will see a change!
