“Forgotten Hollywood”- Suffragette City…
Manny P. here…
“`The nation is celebrating the one hundredth anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment and a woman’s constitutional right to vote. Today, over sixty-eight million women vote in elections because of the courageous suffragists who never gave up the fight for equality.
“`Suffragists began the organized fight for women’s equality in 1848 when they demanded the right to vote during the first women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York. For the next seventy-two years, women leaders lobbied, marched, picketed, and protested for their right to the ballot. After the House of Representatives and the Senate finally passed the amendment, it needed ratification by three-quarters of the forty-eight states to be added to the Constitution. Tennessee was the final state to ratify, and the Nineteenth Amendment became law on August 18, 1920.
“`The fight continued for Women of Color. Jim Crow laws in place prevented their vote. The Voting Rights Act of 1965, signed by President Lyndon Johnson, would affirm a guaranteed exercise of franchise, regardless of race or gender.
“`One flick that harmlessly poked fun of suffragists was The Great Race; the 1965 movie that starred Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis. The woman’s movement is a side story, with the comedy antics provided by Natalie Wood, Vivian Vance, and Arthur O’Connell. The rights-of-women struggle mystifies the male cast, causing frustration, anger, contempt and assorted patronizing behavior. Dare I say, this is not a film that comes to mind when discussing suffrage as a social construct.
“`In reality, President Woodrow Wilson never quite grasped the impact of the struggle. One hundred years later, women mostly understand their vast influence in any given election. Men remain humbled by their efforts.
Until next time> “never forget”
This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 18th, 2020 at 11:39 pm and is filed under Blog by Manny Pacheco. You can follow any comments to this post through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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