la vie en rose

"The time has come to conquer or submit, for us there can be but one choice. We have made it."
-Woodrow Wilson's words, carried on a banner by Alice Paul.
She was sentenced to prison for 7 months, put in solitary confinement, and was finally put in an insane asylum. She stopped eating, so a tube was forced down her throat. Her friend Lucy Burns was brutally beaten, her hands chained above her head to hang overnight. Dora Lewis was pushed into a cell, smashed her head against an iron bed, and was knocked unconscious, left for dead.

Why?

They were fighting for women to have the right to vote.

Did you vote today?

It took 100 years after the Civil War ended and after the passage of the 15th Amendment for African-Americans to be guaranteed the right to vote. Millions were disenfranchised when they tried to register. They endured taunting, intimidation, humiliation, beatings, lynchings, segregation.

Why?

They were fighting for all races to have the right to vote.

Why would suffragettes and Civil Rights activists endure the worst that people have to offer for a country that had no respect for them? For a country that says, "If you're not a white, Christian, wealthy male, then we don't care about your voice." Why? Because it's not about what our country was, or even is right now. It's about what our country can be.

Did you vote today?