Sunflowers For Suffrage
As the 100th Anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment approaches, we are sharing resources to help our clubs plan to commemorate this important voting rights landmark. Our campaign is Sunflowers for Suffrage.
“We also recognize that the fight for suffrage did not end with the adoption of this Amendment as the expansion of suffrage rights to African American and American Indian women took many more years. Our campaign is Sunflowers for Suffrage. Sunflowers were an early symbol of the fight for suffrage and are the source of the color yellow used in the early suffrage movement. We want you to get creative as we flood the world with sunflowers on August 26, 2020. Even beyond this date, we will encourage women near and far to exercise their right to vote – now and always.”
– Crystal O’Neal, GFWC of North Carolina 2020-2022 President’s Installation Address
Be sure to follow us on social media to keep up to date as more opportunities become available. If you’re on Facebook, be sure to use one of our Facebook Frames on your profile picture to show your support and to raise awareness about our Sunflowers for Suffrage Campaign. You can also download one of these pics to use as wallpaper for your phone.
Get creative and share your ideas – we are all better TOGETHER! Use the following hashtags to help us follow your Sunflowers for Suffrage posts:
#GFWCNC #SunflowersforSuffrage #SheElevatestheWorld
Special thanks to these special leaders for sharing their research and expertise as we planned this campaign:
Elisabeth Lane, Legislative and Public Policy Chairman
Lois Nixon, Civic Engagement & Outreach Chairman
Lori Seiler, GFWC-NC Special Project Chairman
EqualiTea
GFWC-NC Statewide Project
Join GFWC of North Carolina for a virtual tea party we’re calling EqualiTea.
Tea parties played a role in the early movement for women’s suffrage. Women used “suffrage teas” to educate other women and garner support and funds. In fact, in 1848 Jane Hunt invited Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Martha Wright, and Mary Ann McClintock for tea and more was boiling than just the water. Stanton later spoke of the day and said, “I poured out, that day, the torrent of my log-accumulating discontent.”
In addition to tea parties, suffragists even promoted branded teas with names like “Votes-for-Women Tea” and “Equality Tea” to raise money for the cause. For fifty cents, the National American Woman Suffrage Association sold a tea cup and saucer embellished with “Votes for Women.”
While these early sufffrage tea parties would most likely be a gathering of white women only, our tea is open to everyone as we commemorate the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment and recognize that the fight for equal voting rights did not end in 1920. We will continue to raise awareness about the fight for the right to vote and advocate for everyone to exercise that right throughout the 2020-2022 GFWC-NC Administration.
Check out the event on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/events/745479819547925/
Resources & Links for Sunflowers for Suffrage
She Changed the World: North Carolina Women Breaking Barriers
“She Changed the World: NC Women Breaking Barriers,” an initiative by the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, celebrates the achievements of North Carolina women and explores the diversity of their experiences and impact on our history.
Facebook: @SheChangedtheWorld
2020 Women’s Vote Centennial Initiative
The passage of the 19th Amendment was not brought about by a singular event, individual, or group. Instead, it was women and their allies, working together for decades and spanning the turn of a century, who fought and won the constitutional right to vote. To preserve this history, groups from across the country have created articles, videos, biographies, lesson plans, fact sheets, and timelines that have been gathered and shared together in one place. Explore 2020 WVCI’s archive of centennial resources, and discover the stories of the tireless advocates who secured the passage of the 19th Amendment.
Facebook: @2020Centennial
Website: https://www.2020centennial.org/
National Women’s History Museum
Facebook: @womenshistory
Website: https://www.womenshistory.org/
http://www.crusadeforthevote.org/
Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality National Monument
Home to the National Woman’s Party for nearly 90 years, this was the epicenter of the struggle for women’s rights. From this house in the shadow of the U.S. Capitol and Supreme Court, Alice Paul and the NWP developed innovative strategies and tactics to advocate for the Equal Rights Amendment and equality for women. President Barack Obama designated the national monument on April 12, 2016.
Facebook: @WomensEqualityNPS
The Facebook page features videos called “Suffrage in 60 Seconds” that are packed with great historical information about the fight for suffrage.
Website: https://www.nps.gov/bepa/index.htm
Women’s Suffrage Centennial Commission
Facebook: @womensvote100
Website: https://www.womensvote100.org/
https://www.womensvote100.org/suffragemonth
Turning Point Suffragist Memorial
Turning Point Suffragist Memorial Association (TPSM) is building a national memorial to American suffragists – with a special focus on those imprisoned at Occoquan, VA, who endured harsh conditions and abuse to win voting rights for American women.
Facebook: @TPSuffragistMemorial
Website: https://suffragistmemorial.org/
https://suffragistmemorial.org/suffragists-in-north-carolina/
Truth Be Told: Stories of Black Women’s Fight for the Vote
The 19th Amendment was an important but incomplete victory in the struggle for women’s voting rights. As we commemorate its centennial, we also have a responsibility to grapple with its complicated history and elevate the stories of courageous Black activists who challenged both sexism and racism in their long fight for the vote.
https://www.evoke.org/truthbetold/story
Women suffragists persisted for 70 years to win the right to vote in 1920
The fight for women’s suffrage took more than 70 years. On the 100th anniversary of ratification, take a look back at some of the highlights, milestones, disappointments and victories of the women’s suffrage movement.
https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/life/women-of-the-century/2020/08/13/19th-amendment-anniversary-timeline-celebrates-womens-suffrage/1761837002/
19th Amendment Centennial Celebrations
Facebook: @19thcentennialcelebrations
Website: https://nationalwomenshistoryalliance.org/
Women’s Rights National Historical Park
Women’s Rights National Historical Park tells the story of the first Women’s Rights Convention held in Seneca Falls, NY on July 19-20,1848. It is a story of struggles for civil rights, human rights, and equality, global struggles that continue today. The efforts of women’s rights leaders, abolitionists, and other 19th century reformers remind us that all people must be accepted as equals.
Facebook: @womensrighsnps
Website: https://www.nps.gov/wori/
Black Women, The Right to Vote And The 19th Amendment
The Nineteenth Amendment didn’t start or end the fight for women’s suffrage, however. That fight was long and many of its earliest activists didn’t live to cast their ballots. Black women were among the first suffragettes, yet they have continued to face barriers to voting for decades.
19th Amendment: Women Vote Commemorative Postage Stamp available August 22nd (open for pre-orders now) https://store.usps.com/store/product/buy-stamps/19th-amendment-women-vote-S_476604
Smithsonian Portrait Gallery online exhibit: Votes for Women https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/2AKyZX3r7pZoJA
North Carolina Museum of History “You Have to Start a Thing” https://www.ncmuseumofhistory.org/exhibits/you-have-start-thing
Women’s Equality Day Virtual Event – League of Women Voters of Wake County is hosting several events including a virtual Women’s Equality Day Virtual event on August 25, 2020. GFWC of North Carolina is a sponsor of this event. https://www.lwvwake.org/event-page
Wall Street Journal Article – How Women’s Suffrage Changed America Far Beyond the Ballot Box https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-womens-suffrage-changed-america-far-beyond-the-ballot-box-11596207771?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=2
Replica fans for GFWC-NC Summer Meeting
Suffrage Films
Iron Jawed Angels https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338139 Directed by Katja von Garnier. With Hilary Swank, Margo Martindale, Anjelica Huston, Frances O’Connor. Defiant young activists take the women’s suffrage movement by storm, putting their lives at risk to help American women win the right to vote.
Not for Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony is a 1999 documentary by Ken Burns produced for National Public Radio and WETA. The documentary explores the movement for women’s suffrage in the United States in the 19th century, focusing on leaders Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. It won a Peabody Award in 1999.[3] It was released on VHS on November 9, 1999.
What 80 Million Women Want is a 1913 American silent melodrama film. It was produced by Unique Film Co. in partnership with the Women’s Political Union. The film featured cameos by prominent suffragists, including Emmeline Pankhurst and Harriot Stanton Blatch.
PBS’s American Experience: The Vote One hundred years after the passage of the 19th Amendment, The Vote tells the dramatic culmination story of the hard-fought campaign waged by American women for the right to vote — a transformative cultural and political movement that resulted in the largest expansion of voting rights in U.S. history. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/vote/?fbclid=IwAR0PxVPYK7kTU3a3CGqLpu0fF3SlLDX0Fbe6Yi7jrWzirmVixu8pN0KJ8A0
History.com
https://www.history.com/topics/womens-history/the-fight-for-womens-suffrage
https://www.history.com/topics/womens-history/women-who-fought-for-the-vote-1
https://www.history.com/topics/womens-rights/seneca-falls-convention
PBS’s American Masters series – Unladylike 2020 Illuminating the stories of extraordinary American heroines from the early years of feminism, American Masters — Unladylike2020 is a multimedia series consisting of a one-hour special for broadcast (Unladylike2020: The Changemakers) and 26 digital short films featuring courageous, little-known and diverse female trailblazers from the turn of the 20th century. THIS VIDEO EXPIRES AUGUST 8th!