In 1920, as women won the vote nation wide, Alice Paul realized that victory was just the first step in the struggle to reach full equality. She went back to school for her law degree knowing that the women’s equality battle would be fought in the Courts and in Congress – as Lily Ledbetter, and many other women today know only too well.

Enjoying the ease of modern day computers and cell phones, I am inspired by the NWP’s creative visual rhetoric so aptly recorded through historic banners, the Allender Political Cartoons and the Congressional Voting Card Index displayed at the Sewall Belmont House & Museum. I can hear the echo of the NWP members’ determined voices working the front room phone banks lobbying Congress to support their equal rights legislation. Today, I proudly display a copy of one of the restored Allender Cartoons in my home. It serves as a daily reminder for me to use my voice and my actions to continue to speak up for women’s full equality and to encourage women everywhere to make their voices heard AND TO VOTE.

Listen -and you can hear the suffragists calling out for you to take action. Refuse to be part of the silent majority! Study the issues. Find your voice. Speak out often, encourage others, and VOTE!

Kate Campbell Stevenson –women’s activist, actor and producer of Women: Back to the Future. and Maryland delegate to Vision 2020, a national initiative to make equality a national priority through the shared leadership among women and men.

According to a  recent White House Press Release: “Women comprise less than one-fifth of our Congress and account for a mere fraction of the chief executives at the helm of our biggest companies.  Women hold only 27 percent of jobs in science and engineering, which are critical to our economic growth in a 21st-century economy.  And, almost 50 years after the Equal Pay Act was enacted, American women still only earn 77 cents for every dollar men earn.  This gap increases among minority women and those living with disabilities.”

In reverence to Women’s Equality Day, lets  remember that full equality is still attainable in the future through perseverance and through the spread of women’s history education. Today, we are fortunate to have: workplaces, libraries, organizations, and public facilities spread the word over what women have struggled with and have achieved in U.S history.

By Sherryn Daniel