Twelve Rebels Hidden in Washington, DC - Tony Spadafora

Twelve Rebels Hidden in Washington, DC (eBook)

Tony Spadafora (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2022 | 1. Auflage
156 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
978-1-6678-1683-8 (ISBN)

'Twelve Rebels Hidden in Washington, DC' introduces heroes and rebels drawn to the American Revolution. Its quest for freedom and a 'more perfect union' has been drawing heroes and rebels from around the world since the beginning. Certified Master Guide Tony Spadafora takes you off the beaten path to meet heroes hidden in DC. Some fought for Washington's revolutionary ideals overseas; others struggled to bring about the 'more perfect union' which the Constitution proclaims is possible. These positive people brought women's, civil, and workers' rights into being in surprising ways.

"e;Twelve Rebels Hidden in Washington, DC"e; focuses on the quest for freedom and a "e;more perfect union"e;, which has been drawing heroes and rebels from around the world since America's beginnings. Certified Master Guide Tony Spadafora takes you off the beaten path to meet heroes hidden in DC. Some fought for Washington's revolutionary ideals overseas; others struggled to bring about the "e;more perfect union"e; which the Constitution proclaims is possible. These magnificent people brought women's, civil, and workers' rights into being in surprising ways. "e;We shall be as a shining city upon a hill,"e; puritan John Winthrop proclaimed. "e;The eyes of the world are upon us."e; And what will they see?Two of our 'rebels' carried Washington's revolutionary ideals into battle overseas. Most stood for civil, women's and worker's rights. One planned the original March on Washington . . . back when Martin Luther King was eleven. Another was the first to organize "e;First Amendment Activity"e; outside the White House. One donated his bonus from the American Revolution, a war which he made p0ssible to win. All saw ideals to make not just a more perfect union, but a more perfect world. Like the eye on the back of a dollar bill, they looked forward, towards "e;A New Order of the Ages"e;.

Chapter 2: Alice Paul and the Suffragist Movement

Around the north side of the Supreme Court, there is a garden flanking Maryland Avenue. This is the road which British General Ross took to burn the Capitol, back in 1814. Just one block up, you see a red brick house. From it, Patriots fired the last shots defending Washington. One killed Ross’ horse. The general then torched the house, though his orders were to just burn government buildings.

Rebuilt in 1820, it is now the Belmont-Paul Women’s equality monument. Once the headquarters of the National Women’s Party (NWP), the house is now named for Ava Belmont, who supported the suffragists, and for Alice Paul. She was a Philadelphia-area Quaker who organized the 1913 parade for Women’s right to vote. Women upstaged President’s Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration, which happened the next day. Afterwards, he refused to acknowledge them, so Paul organized the first protest outside the White House, the ‘Sentinels’. The Belmont-Paul house recounts the struggle – and it was long – to recognize women’s right to vote.

1. Reform as a family tradition.

Paul was following a tradition going back to her ancestor William Penn . . . and his socially-conscious Quakers. The Anti-Slavery Society took root in the 1830s. Philadelphia had a strong chapter. It sent Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton to London’s World Anti-Slavery Conference in 1840. They were not seated. Some of the men in charge argued that the Bible forbade women from public political action. They could watch.

Enraged, Mott and Stanton organized the 1848 Women’s Rights Convention. The conference opened with this Declaration:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights …

Yes, it follows the Declaration of Independence. In the middle, where Jefferson enumerated grievances against King George, this document included “Declarations of Sentiment.”

Some thought the first grievance too radical: “He has not ever permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the elective franchise.” (“He”, here, represented patriarchy in general.) In other words, this “Sentiment” demanded women’s suffrage. Frederick Douglass, the only African-American attending, convinced the convention to ask for it. Since most of the attendees were abolitionists, his words carried weight. They respected his cause as well. So much so that Suffragists suspended their agitation during the Civil War, to avoid fighting on two-fronts.

Twenty years after Seneca Falls, the Fourteenth Amendment recognized African-American men citizens with voting rights. It would take women 72 years to achieve suffrage.

2. Endowed by their Creator with certain Unalienable Rights

Another of the “Sentiments” reflected Great Awakening spirituality.: “He has usurped the prerogative of Jehovah himself, claiming it as his right to assign for her a sphere of action, when that belongs to her conscience and her God.” The Declaration asserted that women will “endeavor to enlist the pulpit and the press in our behalf.”

Counteracting biblical interpretations calling for women’s subordination was difficult. One of the National American Women’s Suffrage Association’s (NAWSA’s) founders, Lucy Stone, learned ancient Hebrew and Greek so she could read the actual Bible, not a translation which, after all, could be biased. Stone could then argue against “inaccurate” claims.

About that time, the Anglican Church issued a revised Bible. ‘If it could re-translate the Book, why couldn’t the Suffragists?’ reasoned Stanton. So she wrote “The Women’s Bible,” over the objections of many NAWSA members. They realized that nothing would anger potential supporters more than perceived disrespect of the Church. Prayers to a new Trinity of “Heavenly Mother, Father, and Son” outraged many. One advocate in the New York Times, seeking to calm the controversy, suggested the book be called “A Women’s Commentary“. Stanton had none of it. "The only difference between us is: we say that these degrading ideas of woman emanated from the brain of man, while the church says that they came from God."

3. Blowback

As expected, women’s suffrage was set back to practically zero. NAWSA would see no more of Stanton, in any official position. This controversy focused their eyes on the prize: voting rights. Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, president for most of the period from 1900 until the 19th amendment, decided on a discrete and deliberate strategy of working state-by-state.

States determine voting eligibility, unless a Constitutional amendment says otherwise. By 1900, women voted in four states. Prior to World War I, five more states and the Territory of Alaska enfranchised women. In 1916, Jeanette Rankin of Montana was the first women elected to the House, even when women could not vote in most states.

Alice Paul, born to idealistic parents, had learned about suffrage from childhood, attending meetings with her family. She graduated from Swarthmore College in 1905 and then continued to the New York School of Philanthropy. Her masters in social-work included an internship in London, which set the direction of her next seven decades.

Courtesy National Park Service

4. Paul finds a different Path.

She met Christobel Pankhurst, whose mother Emmeline, was speaking at a Woman’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) rally. These were the ‘suffragettes. Opponents used the diminutive ‘-ette’ for the radicals, as if saying ‘Look at the little girls seeking suffrage.’ The women adopted the pejorative with pride. Their slogan, ‘Deeds not Words” captivated Paul – despite her kinship with pacifist William Penn. They set fires, threw bricks through windows, and in one ‘suffragette outrage’, young Winston Churchill was attacked with a horsewhip at Bristol’s railroad station.

Paul was imprisoned after the Black Friday protests, when hundreds of women stormed Parliament. They wore extra layers of clothing to cushion the impact when policemen threw them to the ground. One paper quoted a bystander, “I saw Ada Wright knocked down a dozen times ... A tall man with a silk hat fought to protect her as she lay on the ground, but a group of policemen thrust him away, seized her again, hurled her into the crowd and felled her again as she turned. Later I saw her lying … with a group of anxious women kneeling round her.”

As film speeds improved, Journalists could capture the conflicts live. These action photos were a new tool – and effective.

Churchill released the arrested protesters. Perhaps he hoped that public pressure for an inquiry would thus die down if the police brutality, including sexual assaults, just faded away..

It didn’t.

Protests and arrests continued. Suffragettes demanded to be classified as ‘political prisoners’, with certain privileges, such as letter – and pamphlet – writing. William Penn had attracted many converts from prison, for example. But the women were refused. So many retaliated by refusing food. Guards tied them to tables, jammed a metal contraption in their mouths to keep them open, and forced a tube down either their nostrils or throats to pour liquid food down. Hopefully, the tubes would find the passage to the stomach instead of to the lungs.

Courtesy Wikepedia

Gandhi, watching London, wrote in 1906: “Today the whole country is laughing at them .... But undaunted, these women work on, steadfast ... They are bound to succeed ... for the simple reason that deeds are better than words.” Two years later he would go to jail himself. He said that the women’s bravery “ought to shame us and inspire us ... Our sufferings are nothing compared to what she has had to go through.”

Paul returned to America aware of the militant strategies’ pain – and gain. She had grown up with NAWSA, but now its slow state-by-state process discouraged her.

5. A crack in the wall lets in the light.

She and her colleague Lucy Burns discovered the small Congressional Committee, charged with promoting a national, Federal suffrage amendment. The committee had one part-time volunteer with a ten-dollar postage budget. Much of that was returned. The priority was state-by-state.

Originally denied the committee position, the two young women finally found allies who convinced leadership to let them try – as volunteers. There would be no official budget either.

Recognizing Americans’ disapproval of the British tactics, Paul planned a grand spectacle the day before President Wilson’s inauguration, March 13, 1913 (3-13-13). Inez Milholland, a NYC labor lawyer...

Erscheint lt. Verlag	7.3.2022
Sprache	englisch
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
ISBN-10	1-6678-1683-7 / 1667816837
ISBN-13	978-1-6678-1683-8 / 9781667816838

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