A historic day today! I know I shouldn't bring up politics but there is no denying today is a historic day. I haven't seen the country this stirred up about politics in all my life. What a unique country I live in where men and women of various races, religions and colors can vote. I have watched over the years as average people like me lost interest in the political process, many have no idea what the issues are and vote based on the candidates looks or the clothes they wear. I found something in my saved emails that I want to share here.....

Vote.. pass it on



A history lesson and a good reminder...



The Night Of Terror.

http://www.lkwdpl.org/WIHOHIO/paul-ali.htm



This is the story of our Grandmothers, and Great-grandmothers, as

they lived only 90 years ago. It was not until 1920 that women were

granted the right to go to the poles and vote.

The women were innocent and defenseless. And by the end of the

night,they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and

their warden's blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly

convicted of "obstructing sidewalk traffic." They beat Lucy Burn, chained

her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the

night, bleeding and gasping for air. They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark

cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her

cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack.

Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating,

choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the "Night of Terror" on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden

at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a

lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket

Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right to vote.

For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their

food--all of it colorless slop--was infested with worms. When one of the

leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a

chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she

vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out

to the press.

So, refresh my memory. Some women won't vote this year

because--why,exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn't matter? It's raining?

Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO's new movie

"Iron Jawed Angels." It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women

waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my

say. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder.

All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But

the actual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote.

Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege.

Sometimes it was inconvenient.

My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women's history, saw the

HBO movie, too. When she stopped by my desk to talk about it, she looked

angry. She was--with herself. "One thought kept coming back to me as I

watched that movie," she said. "What would those women think of the way I

use--or don't use--my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now,

not just younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn." The right

to vote, she said, had become valuable to her "all over again."

HBO released the movie on video and DVD. I wish all history, social

studies and government teachers would include the movie in their

curriculum. I want it shown on Bunco night, too, and anywhere else women

gather. I realize this isn't our usual idea of socializing, but we are

not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think a little shock

therapy is in order.

It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade

a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be

permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor

refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn't make her

crazy. The doctor admonished the men: "Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity."

Please, if you are so inclined, pass this on to all the women you

know. We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so

hard for by these very courageous women. Whether you vote democratic,

republican or independent party - remember to vote.

History is being made.



Now why isn't this taught in schools? Oh I knew ladies fought for the right to vote but I thought it was just making posters and some protests  but no it was a battle... a war. It's thanks to these brave women that women could be a part of this historic night. It seems we have come a long way, baby.