Thanks to the help and participation of supporters like you, 2021 has been an incredible year of progress, innovation, reflection, and recommitment by Suffrage100MA.
We were pleased to hold virtual events such as our book talk with Ida B Wells’ great-granddaughter Michelle Duster throughout the year, as well as our in-person Women’s Equality Day at the Swan Boats with Sen. Joan Lovely, Rep. Pat Haddad, and other valued partners.
As the Massachusetts state coordinator for the suffrage marker project of the National Votes for Women Trail and the Pomeroy Foundation, Suffrage100MA has been honored to participate and assist with the many details necessary to obtain historical suffrage markers for Massachusetts. The Pomeroy Foundation is generously donating approximately five markers per state, and it appears that at least four and hopefully five markers will be manufactured and installed in Massachusetts in 2022. Stay tuned!
We were also thrilled to launch our new 1,000 Classrooms Initiative, which aims to empower future generations to vote and advance equality by sharing suffragists’ inspiring histories through our film, “The Fight for Women’s Suffrage: Looking Back, Marching Forward.”
Please donate to help us continue this important work.
As we continued to immortalize and share more of the suffragists’ stories, our board and staff embarked on a critical visioning process, seeking the input of Partners, staff, volunteers, and other stakeholders to determine what comes next for our organization.
Our conclusion: THE WORK IS NOT DONE and therefore we will be building on the foundation of Suffrage100MA to create an online Massachusetts women’s museum and cultural center to provide a more comprehensive history/herstory resource for the general public and students that will inform the ongoing movement for equality and equity into the future! (We’re currently hiring: Read our “Consultant to Develop Plan for an Online ‘MA Women’s History Center’” job description!)
Obtaining the vote was part of the movement for women to achieve equality but women are still not equal! The history – I mean herstory – of women obtaining the vote did not end with the 19th Amendment being added to the U.S. Constitution, August 26, 1920. It took decades after 1920 for people of color to obtain voting rights, and, as we all know, voting access and voting rights are being limited today rather than expanded. Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) and the LGBTQ+ communities are still fighting for basic rights, the Equal Rights Amendment (drafted by Alice Paul and others in 1923!) is not yet adopted!
Our goal has always been to share the herstory, so that people – especially young people – will be inspired to vote and become civically active. Your ideas are welcome as we explore and create our online museum! Once this virtual work is developed and the pandemic is much more under control (it will be!), we look forward to exploring developing a “brick and mortar” Massachusetts women’s museum/cultural center.
We will be exploring a new name for our organization and finalizing our new vision and mission statements for the organization moving forward. We so appreciate the terrific suggestions stakeholders like you have made during this process and we continue to welcome your input as we move forward.
2021 has been an exciting year of growth and evolution, and we can’t wait to see what we can do together in 2022! Please invest in this work to make sure that future generations will continue to be inspired by the suffragists to advance the movement for equality for all.
Thank you for your continued interest and support!
March 2021