Alice Paul
January 11, 1885-July 9, 1977
Alice Paul was a major force in securing the right of U.S . women to vote. She planned and lead the campaign for passage of the Susan B. Anthony Amendment. Borrowing techniques from British suffragettes, Paul and her friends began suffrage watches, picketing, parades, demonstrations, and strikes. These actions caught media attention and brought the issue of women’s suffrage onto the national stage.
She founded the National Women’s Party and staged the first political protest to picket at the White House. The “Silent Sentinels” picketed the White House from January until July 1917, when they were arrested for “obstructing traffic”. Paul and others were locked up in the Occoquan Workhouse and the D. C. Jail. At one time, during a hunger strike, Paul was force fed raw eggs.
All that for having the audacity to want to vote!
In 1918, Wilson finally decided women’s suffrage was needed as a “war measure’, and urged it be voted upon by Congress. It came down to one vote, that of the state of Tennessee, for the 19th Amendment to be ratified.
She drafted the Equal Rights Amendment in 1923, but an incarnation of it didn’t make it to the Senate until 1972. Unfortunately, approval by 38 states is required and it only received 35. Paul’s work remains unfinished in 2009.
Paul saw the danger of linking abortion with women’s rights, and refused to put abortion and birth control language into the ERA. She knew it was political suicide, and she said that even if women did want to do many things that she wished they would not do with their freedom, it was not her business to tell them what to do with it, but to see that they had it.”
Happy Birthday, Alice!
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