If, like me, you are searching for a dose of faith in human progress in this wild and weird moment, queue up The Vote. This four-hour American Experience documentary, currently streaming on the PBS website, tells the invigorating story of the 70-year campaign by American women for recognition as full-fledged participants in democracy. August 26, 2020, marks the 100th anniversary of the day that the 19th Amendment to the Constitution became law, extending the franchise to 20 million women.
Women weren’t given the vote: they took it. What an astounding story of persistence, high-level strategy and flat-out courage the campaign entailed. While putting pressure on Woodrow Wilson to support the amendment, dozens of peaceful picketers at the White House gates were thrown into prison and tortured with force-feeding and beatings. Yes, that happened. And the documentary doesn’t shy away from ugly details, like the willingness of the movement’s white leaders to jettison Black women from the movement in return for support from Southern Democratic senators. That didn’t finally happen, but it could have.
Oh, and don’t call them suffragettes – that was a derisive diminutive nickname coined by the anti-women crowd. The correct title for these dauntless organizers and activists is suffragists. Now’s the moment to raise a glass to our sisters who fought so long and so hard.
— Heidi Yorkshire