Votes for Women is part of A Yellow Rose Project, a photographic collaboration of responses, reflections, and reactions to the 19th Amendment from over one hundred women across the United States commissioned by Meg Griffiths and Frances Jakubek.
Votes for Women, is a tribute to suffragist and humanist Inez Milholland (1886-1916) who throughout her short life did more than speak and demonstrate for suffrage, her activism extended to trying to improve the lives of all disenfranchised Americans.
When Inez stepped into her first suffrage parade in 1911, she held a sign that read, "Forward, out of error, Leave behind the night, Forward through the darkness, Forward into light!” In 1913, she led the massive suffrage parade in Washington D.C. as Columbia, wearing a crown and a long white cape riding a white horse, scheduled for the day before President Woodrow Wilson was inaugurated.
In her suffrage work, as well as her other advocacies, Inez engaged in a constant struggle with those in power to recognize the humanity of all classes and genders. At the time of her death Milholland never got to see the passing of the 19th amendment granting all Americans, regardless of sex, the right to vote. Her last public words were, "Mr. President, how long must women wait for liberty?"
© 2023 Claudia Ruiz Gustafson . All rights reserved
