The historic women’s suffrage march on Washington - Michelle Mehrtens
On March 3, 1913,
protesters parted for the woman in white:
dressed in a flowing cape and
sitting astride a white horse,
the activist Inez Milholland was
hard to miss.
She was riding at the helm of the
Women’s Suffrage Parade-
the first mass protest for a woman’s
right to vote on a national scale.
After months of strategic planning
and controversy,
thousands of women gathered
in Washington D.C.
Here, they called for a constitutional
amendment granting them the right to vote.
By 1913, women’s rights activists had
been campaigning for decades.
As a disenfranchised group,
women had no voice in the laws that
affected their– or anyone else’s– lives.
However, they were struggling to secure
broader support for political equality.
They’d achieved no major victories
since 1896,
when Utah and Idaho enfranchised women.
That brought the total number of states
which recognized a women’s right to vote
to four.
A new, media-savvy spirit arrived
in the form of Alice Paul.
She was inspired by the British
suffragettes,
who went on hunger strikes and endured
imprisonment in the early 1900s.
Rather than conduct costly campaigns
on a state-by-state basis,
Paul sought the long-lasting impact
of a constitutional amendment,
which would protect women’s voting
rights nationwide.
As a member of the National American
Women Suffrage Association,
Paul proposed a massive pageant to whip
up support and rejuvenate the movement.
Washington authorities initially
rejected her plan-
and then tried to relegate the march
to side streets.
But Paul got those decisions overturned
and confirmed a parade for the day
before the presidential inauguration
of Woodrow Wilson.
This would maximize media coverage
and grab the attention of the
crowds who would be in town.
However, in planning the parade,
Paul mainly focused on appealing to
white women from all backgrounds,
including those who were racist.
She actively discouraged African
American activists
and organizations from participating-
and stated that those who did so
should march in the back.
But black women would not be
made invisible in a national movement
they helped shape.
On the day of the march,
Ida B. Wells-Barnett,
a ground-breaking investigative journalist
and anti-lynching advocate,
refused to move to the back and
proudly marched under the Illinois banner.
The co-founder of the NAACP,
Mary Church Terrell,
joined the parade with the 22 founders
of the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority,
an organization created by female
students from Howard University.
In these ways and more,
black women persevered
despite deep hostility
from white women in the movement,
and at great political and physical risk.
On the day of the parade,
suffragists assembled to create a
powerful exhibition.
The surging sections of the procession
included international suffragists,
artists, performers and business-owners.
Floats came in the form of golden
chariots;
an enormous Liberty Bell; and a map
of enfranchised countries.
On the steps of the Treasury Building,
performers acted out the historical
achievements of women to a live orchestra.
The marchers carried on even as a
mob blocked the route,
hurling insults and spitting at women,
tossing cigars, and physically
assaulting participants.
The police did not intervene,
and in the end,
over 100 women were hospitalized.
Their mistreatment, widely reported
throughout the country,
catapulted the parade into the public eye—
and garnered suffragists greater sympathy.
National newspapers lambasted the police,
and Congressional hearings investigated
their actions during the parade.
After the protest, the "Women’s Journal"
declared,
“Washington has been disgraced. Equal
suffrage has scored a great victory."
In this way,
the march initiated a surge
of support for women’s voting rights
that endured in the coming years.
Suffragists kept up steady pressure
on their representatives,
attended rallies, and petitioned
the White House.
Inez Milholland, the woman on
the white horse,
campaigned constantly throughout
the United States,
despite suffering from chronic
health problems.
She did not live to see her efforts
come to fruition.
In 1916,
she collapsed while giving a
suffrage speech and died soon after.
According to popular reports,
her last words were,
“Mr. President, how long must women
wait for liberty?”
Though full voting inclusion
would take decades,
in 1920, Congress ratified the
19th amendment,
finally granting women the right to vote.
