The Suffragette Tea Party will be a lively gathering this Sunday afternoon from 1:00 -3:00 at the Historic Kump House. Not since the Nineteenth Amendment was passed in 1920 have local women had so much to think about concerning the future of families in Randolph County. Both health care and public education are being defunded by our current elected officials.

This Suffragette Tea Party will be a time to learn about the women who worked to pass the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote. The Suffragists favored using peaceful persuasion to gain support for their cause, but the Suffragettes in England were more confrontational. These protesters used the motto “Deeds not words. Action over mere debate.”

By 1903 Emmeline Pankhurst and her two daughters were organizing the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) in England. When women were imprisoned for their civil disobedience, they used hunger strikes to gain public attention.

The Woman’s Suffrage movement was less aggrssive in the United States, but by 1910 the Suffragists were becoming inspired by the progress of English women. Alice Stokes Paul became the Quaker leader of the “Silent Sentinels” events that led to the passage of the 19th Amendment. She strategized with Lucy Burns to make the American public more aware of injustice against women. These women suffered police abuse, but they did not abandon their cause. Alice Paul led the National Woman’s Party and fought for Civil Rights.

I am especially glad that women have the right to vote in these times when our Randolph County school system has the lowest ranking in the state of West Virginia, our WV school policy on vaccinating children is in question, and the President has called up the WV National Guard to control crime in the US capital.

History helps us to remember that democracy is not totally harmonious nor healthy. It is impossible to ensure that every family will have all that it needs. In Randolph County families are struggling to bring illegal drugs under control, and this effort is much like the Suffragists who started by fighting to bring liquor control in the early 20th Century.

Now 105 years after the Suffragists achieved their goal and gained the right to vote, it is time for women to ask more political questions.

What is happening to the funding of health care for all families? Where is the accountability within “School Choice” for all students? How can this society solve the problems of homelessness?

Our leaders are not thinking about the needs of people in poverty or the hard work done by all middle class parents, but women in West Virginia see these problems daily.

Our issues are different now, but the need for women to take a more active part in government has never been more important.