Important

I'm not ususally political, at least not on my blog. But, I received this email as a forward and thought it was important to share.

I felt very humbled and ashamed after reading this. I am very grateful for the right to vote but have taken for granted the way I got this right.

This is long, but worth the read:

WHY WOMEN SHOULD VOTE

In 1848 the 1st women's rights convention was held in New York asking for voting rights for women. It was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote under the United States Constitution.

Those who fought for the right to vote were jailed for picketing the White House. 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."

(Lucy Burns)

They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air. At one point she embarked on a hunger strike to which to was brutally force-fed.

(Dora Lewis)

"Mrs. Lawrence Lewis, Miss Gertrude Crocker, Miss Katharine Fisher, Miss Hazel Hunkins, and Miss Julia Emory, all of whom were among the most severely ill, left their prison hardly able to walk from the taxi to the door of the Headquarters."

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.

(Alice Paul)

When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, also 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. She was sentenced to 7 months in prison for her role in picketing the White House.

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/suffrage/nwp/prisoners.pdf

(all facts can be checked online at the library of congress)

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?

There is a film called 'Iron Jawed Angels' that depicts the war women fought for the right to vote. I encourage anyone interested to watch it or look it up on youtube.com

I agree, 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, independent or whatever - just remember to vote.