When: closing January 5, 2020
Unlike so many other examinations of the women's suffrage movement in the United States, this show confronts the exclusion of non-white women from the struggle. It's a stain on the fight for equality that white women were so willing to cast aside the rights of their non-white sisters.
The show tells the story of women's suffrage from the earliest years in the anti-slavery movement of the 1800s through to final victory in 1920. It was a long fight - one of the longest existing social reform movements in US history.
One thing I learned in this show: suffragette is the name for British women advocating for the right to vote; the word is the US is suffragist. Who knew?
In 1913, suffragists went to Washington in the first non-violent protest to march on the Capitol. They then began protesting outside the White House, in Lafayette Park, where people continue to this day to bring attention to causes they believe in. Among those protestors were students from the Washington College of Law, a law school for women, which is now part of American University and co-ed. My husband works at WCL, so it was nice to see the school get a mention.
I was very pleased to see a code you can scan to register to vote at the end of the show. All the work that all those women put in over all those decades will be for naught if people don't exercise their right to vote.
Verdict: An excellent, and compete, look at the women's suffrage movement, warts and all.
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