Alice Paul, A Suffragist for Today: Moving Forward, Looking Back

Alice Paul fought for women and made trouble too. In her time, virtually no American woman, was allowed to vote. She was a sham citizen with no voice in her own government. Relentlessly, Alice attacked this inequality. She confronted egregious offenders against women’s rights, from the man in the streets, to the all-male (save one) United States Congress, to President Woodrow Wilson himself. And she prevailed. Intrepid Alice did it like Gandhi did, by making her oppressors condemn themselves…in public.Alice Paul evolved from a privileged childhood steeped in Quaker values, and later, through her chance encounters in England with the beautiful militant, Christabel Pankhurst and a redoubtable red-head, Lucy Burns, she utilized these values as a suffragette. Alice always played hard for the cause, and in return suffered hunger strikes and forced feedings in British prisons. These ordeals, however, forged the tough young woman who became the leader of the American suffragists, the legendary “Iron Jawed Angels.”With her single-minded focus on passage of the 19th Amendment, Alice Paul was ingenious in her mobilization of resources, and unconquerable under her American jailers’ cruel tactics. Sadly though, her challenges weren’t restricted to the men who attacked her followers, a virulent faction of fellow suffragists actively decried her bold methods. Then there was rampant racial bias, and the intransigence of cultural roles. This American history not only teaches, it enables. Today’s enlightened activists can look to Alice for more than inspiration; they can scrutinize her methods for making effective change. Since there’s work left to be done, questions about our 21st century values arise. Do females and males now earn the same pay for the same job? Do all organized religions offer parity for women? Did the Equal Rights Amendment ever pass? And do we still need #Metoo? What would Alice do?Readers have an opportunity to weigh in on these issues and still more raised in Alice Paul, Suffragist for Today’s Woman, at http://www.patriciacuff.com Chat about questions regarding the suffragists’ response to racial inclusion, the impact of militant activism, and an examination of the place of money in politics. Look hard at Alice’s methods for making effective history. They worked.