ALICE PAUL AND THE HUNGER STRIKE THAT CHANGED AMERICA

It’s hard to imagine that there was a time, less than 100 years ago, when women in this country were denied the right to vote. There is no doubt that that the Constitutional Amendment that was approved in 1920 giving women the right to vote would never have happened without the courageous and bold acts of Alice Paul and other women who supported her in the fight to be recognized.

In 1916 Alice Paul, in an effort to change the status of women in America, started the National Women’s Party. This was just a first step in an arduous effort to give women the right to vote, a right that had been Constitutionally denied since our nation’s formation.

In the Presidential election of 1916, Paul and the NWP campaigned against the continuing refusal of President Woodrow Wilson and other incumbent Democrats to support the Suffrage Amendment actively. In January 1917, the NWP staged the first political protest to picket at the White House. The pickets, known as “Silent Sentinels” held banners demanding the right to vote. After war was declared in April 1917, many in the public viewed the pickets as disloyal. In June 1917, picketers were arrested on charges of “obstructing traffic.” Over the next six months, many, including Paul, were convicted and incarcerated at the Occoaquan Workhouse in Virginia. When the public first heard the news of the first arrests, they were stunned. Leading suffragists and very well-connected women were going to prison for peacefully protesting. President Wilson received bad publicity from this event and was livid with the position he was forced into. He quickly pardoned the first women arrested on July 19, two days after they had been sentenced. But the damage had already been done, the Boston Journal stated, “The little band representing the NWP has been abused and bruised by government clerks, soldiers and sailors until its efforts to attract the President’s attention has sunk into the conscience of the whole nation.”

Suffragists continued picketing outside the White House after this event and during WWI with banners containing slogans such as “Mr. President, How Long Must Women Wait For Liberty?”. Although the suffragists protested peacefully, their protests were not always met kindly. While protesting, young men would harass and beat up the women, with the police never intervening on behalf of the protesters. Police would even arrest other men who tried to help the women who were getting beaten. Even though they were protesting during wartime, they continued peaceful, non-destructive protesting, so they still had some public support. Throughout this time, more protesters were arrested and sent to Occoquan or the District Jail, with no pardons offered.

Prison and hunger strikes

“Recognizing the publicity value of her own arrest and imprisonment, Paul purposefully strove to receive the seven-month jail sentence that started on October 20, 1917. She began serving her time in the District Jail.

Whether sent to Occoquan or the District Jail, the women were given no special treatment as political prisoners and had to live in harsh conditions, with poor sanitation, infested food, and dreadful facilities. In protest of the conditions at the District Jail, Paul began a hunger strike which led to her being moved to the prison’s psychiatric ward and being force fed raw eggs through a feeding tube. “Seems almost unthinkable now, doesn’t it?” Paul told an interviewer from American Heritage when asked about the forced feeding. “It was shocking that a government of men could look with such extreme contempt on a movement that was asking nothing except such a simple little thing as the right to vote.”

Those suffragists imprisoned at Occoquan in November 1917, endured what became known as the Night of Terror. Returning protesters was roughed up by guards, some to the point of unconsciousness. Some were choked and one was even stabbed between her eyes by her own banner. None of the protesters received medical assistance after the event and they were thrown into concrete ”punishment cells”. The National Woman’s Party went to court to protest the treatment of the Occoquan women, who were later moved to the District Jail where Paul languished. Despite the brutality, Paul remained undaunted and on November 27 and 28, all the suffragists were released from prison.

Paul’s hunger strike, combined with the continuing demonstrations and attendant press coverage, kept pressure on the Wilson administration. In January 1918, Wilson announced that women’s suffrage was urgently needed as a “war measure,” and strongly urged Congress to pass the legislation. The amendment passed the House in 1918 but the Senate was a different story. President Wilson even attended the Senate meeting and urged the senators to pass this amendment. The amendment still fell two votes short of passing. The next year, 1919, the amendment was one vote short of passing. In 1920 the Nineteenth Amendment was passed and secured the vote for women.

Later in life, Alice Paul played a major role in adding protection for women in the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Alice Paul was born in 1885 and died in 1977. She was born and died in the same town of Moorestown, New Jersey.

My question is....where are the Alice Paul’s in today’s society? Certainly Malala Yousefzai of Pakistan is a great example of a women (17 years old) who is fighting tirelessly for women’s rights. She took a bullet in the face for her courageous stance to give girl’s the same right to be educated as boys, but in this country, at this time, women like Kim Kardashian and Rhianna, and Lindsey Lohan, are the Vanguard------they win the day. I’m not so certain that the clock hasn’t been turned back in some ways...but that is open for debate. Women and girls are still sexually abused on an epidemic basis and it is largely dismissed by the court system. Even when over 30 women accuse a celebrity of rape there are still a high percentage of Americans who don’t believe them. Domestic Violence against women is only now receiving a little attention in the media due to a high profile video in an elevator of a football player who knocked out his girlfriend and then dragged her out by her arms

It had it’s 15 minutes of media attention and now we have moved on.....

It’s too late for Nicole Brown Simpson and many, many, others....., the system let them down, and it cost them their lives.

Food for Thought....