Today marks the 100th Anniversary of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, granting the universal right to vote for women throughout the US. The Seneca Falls Convention of women (Frederick Douglas attended one day, as may have some other men) is credited with the beginning of the movement, though voting was not its primary purpose.
The Reconstruction Amendments, which in addition to abolishing slavery gave the right to vote to Black men at least in theory, promoted a resurgence among many women to advocate for the right to vote. Women had gained the right to vote in a number of states admitted to the Union, which also served to highlight the lack of the right in most states.
The story of the 19th Amendment is well documented in Wikipedia, and also in a very nice editorial and article in the New York Times. My grandmother, who was born in 1899, turned 21 in 1920 and gained the right to vote 100 years ago. She was a tall, strong woman from Texas who first homesteaded in California’s Central Valley, where she taught in a one-room schoolhouse. She had a college degree in a time when that was rare, even for men. The thought that she grew up not believing she would be able to vote is as abhorrent to me as is the efforts still made today to prevent minorities from voting.
The Times added an interesting article today, the day the 19th Amendment was certified and became official. Politics being the scummy thing it too often is, the article covers some of the underhanded steps taken to thwart final approval of the women’s right to vote.
I’ve pondered this topic and the biases behind it in the weeks leading up to this anniversary. That topic and a biblical story came together in my mind and prompted this poem that seems fitting in a way to share.
Nameless
Perhaps it was best not to have a name
other than “the wife of Shem”
given all we of the last and first again
of women have endured
but I do have a story for you
that may bring a knowing smile but which
you must keep among we of the red tent
I do admit the old man was wise –
in his six-hundred year-old way –
to heed his God but as men often do
he would not stop for directions
when we mentioned that
an old and small man’s cubit
might make for a crowded home
That he built that house of his
shaped as a ship of sorts
seemed eccentric it’s true
but it kept him busy and
mostly out of the vineyard
though the neighbors were sure
he’d been into the goatskins again
And not to seem ungrateful
but any woman would know
that only one window and door
was no way to build a home that
would reek of pitch and gophers’ wood
and so we humored him for his sons –
whose names you do know
The rains the old man promised
did come though softly at first
but shelter of any kind was welcome
so I demurely held my tongue
as we women were taught to do
when he decided he should
bring the flocks in as well
But things turned for the worse
when he felt pity in the gathering storm
on lions and tigers and bears
and all manner of creeping things
though the birds I’ll say were a nice touch
but for all of our sake if not for God’s
it was I who said no to the lizard giants
Now my daughter’s daughter’s daughters
you are blessed in your way not to know
how God-awfully long it rained
or to remember the cries of those without
who the old man piously claimed
his God had deemed wicked and corrupt
though one may wonder – if but to herself
In the course of time some man will surely write
of this tale as an epic of a great man and his God
at the end of one world and the beginning of another
but know this from one whose name time will soon forget
there was more to this story we women must pass on
to our daughters and on to theirs ever and anon
and if there is a lesson at all in this it is
There have always been and will ever be
some good and far too many evil among men
there has always been a rainbow above
for all who had insight simply to see
and much more for we who look with open eyes
discern with wisdom and sense with open hearts
though we will soon be forgotten
We will forever abide and raise sons in eternal hope
they may someday learn all we know so true and well
and we will bear daughters such as you
to offer promise for the tomorrows to come
when we shall be known and praised
in our time in names deserved to be known
for ever having saved mankind from itself
