#12 Belmont-Paul Women's Equality National Monument House and Museum

A picketing banner used by suffragettes

Today I headed to Capitol Hill to visit the Belmont-Paul Women's Equality National Monument House and Museum and take a free National Park Service Ranger tour. A quick introductory summary from the website:

Home to the National Woman's Party for nearly 90 years, this was the epicenter of the struggle for women's rights. From this house in the shadow of the U.S. Capitol and Supreme Court, Alice Paul and the NWP developed innovative strategies and tactics to advocate for the Equal Rights Amendment and equality for women. President Barack Obama designated the national monument on April 12, 2016.

The Belmont-Paul House

A modest couple rooms only a block away from the Capitol, this historic house has some great stories to tell. Did you know that the US suffragettes used Gold, White, and Violet sashes to symbolize Give Women the Vote?

And that the day before President Wilson's inauguration in 1913 was a women's march for the right to vote? Comparing photos of that march to the 2017 one I participated in was moving - feeling connected to American women across a century, making our voices heard under the First Amendment.

The 1913 Women's March

The 2017 Women's March

Women suffragettes were the first group to picket the White House with banners, exercising our First Amendment rights. They often displayed banners of Wilson's own hypocritical quotes about democracy as he denied them the vote.

The story of the ratification of the 19th amendment giving women the right to vote in 1920 was also amazing! The last state to ratify was Tennessee, and it was only because one 24 year old man received a note from his mother telling him to vote for women and changed his vote to Aye! Apparently, Steven Spielberg is working on a movie about this story now!

The Equal Rights Amendment was the next frontier for women's rights, and it has still not passed! That means it is still legal to discriminate on the basis of gender in the US. How far we've come and how far we have yet to go.

Alice Paul, founder of the National Women's Party and namesake of the house where she lived and worked

Item 47 Completed 2/8/20
25/47 items complete = 53%