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demmiblue

(36,873 posts)
Sat Oct 29, 2016, 09:32 AM Oct 2016

Why Women Bring Their 'I Voted' Stickers to Susan B. Anthony's Grave

Source: Smithsonian



When Susan B. Anthony died in 1906 at age 86, her funeral overflowed with mourners. Despite the fact that there was a blizzard raging in Rochester, New York, thousands packed into the church service and over 10,000 others showed up to pass by her flag-draped coffin and pay their respects. Yesterday, over a century later, admirers of the suffrage icon came to her grave with a different kind of tribute—dozens of “I Voted” stickers.
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Rochester women have been coming to Anthony’s grave with flowers and stickers since at least 2014. One of them, Sarah Jane McPike, told The Huffington Post’s Caurie Putnam that the first year she voted, she brought flowers to Anthony’s grave. She isn’t the only one—as of 6:15 yesterday, the grave in Rochester’s Mount Hope Cemetery was covered with two bouquets and at least 28 stickers. In a Facebook post about the tribute that is now becoming a tradition, Brianne Wojtesta wrote that the cemetery “has taken an official stance that they love this. It’s seen as a way of interacting with and honoring the legacy of one of their ‘permanent residents.’”

And what a legacy: Anthony fought for equality for women for over 60 years and laid the foundation for the legal right to vote that American women enjoy today. Not only did she encourage women to agitate for the vote, but she herself illegally voted and served time for her defiance.

<snip>

But to Anthony, the right to vote was worth it all. “It was we, the people, not we, the white male citizens, nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed this Union,” she said in an 1873 speech. “And we formed it, not to give the blessings or liberty, but to secure them; not to the half of ourselves and the half of our posterity, but to the whole people—women as well as men. And it is downright mockery to talk to women of their enjoyment of the blessings of liberty while they are denied the use of the only means of securing them provided by this democratic-republican government—the ballot.”


Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/why-women-bring-their-i-voted-stickers-susan-b-anthonys-grave-180958847/
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Why Women Bring Their 'I Voted' Stickers to Susan B. Anthony's Grave (Original Post) demmiblue Oct 2016 OP
KnR. A toast to Susan B. Anthony! Hekate Oct 2016 #2
I live near Rochester Liberalynn Oct 2016 #3
many women, young and old, have no idea how much work SBA and others did on their behalf; TheFrenchRazor Oct 2016 #4
Respect to a pioneer MuttLikeMe Oct 2016 #5
 

TheFrenchRazor

(2,116 posts)
4. many women, young and old, have no idea how much work SBA and others did on their behalf;
Sun Oct 30, 2016, 02:47 AM
Oct 2016

women's rights did not just happen; these women MADE it happen. when HRC is elected, Dog willing, we can all thank SBA and so many other women who did the work, and took the blows, and made it possible.

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