We celebrated the 100th Anniversary of Woman's right to vote this week. The theme: "Forward Into Light."
Our daughters now learn that a woman's place is where ever her imagination takes her! Thank you, courageous women who went before us! To commemorate, and remind us that it can take a long time to get things right, here is the winner of BrPL's Suffrage Poetry Contest, Melody Rivas.
What About Me?
The war was not won in 1920
Yet there were still white women aplenty
Dropping their signs, leaving the streets, raising their voices to whoop with glee
Drowning out the frantic colored cries of
“What about me?”
The war was not won in 1930
Many women were left still yearning
To vote right next to their fair skinned peers,
To get what they had been denied for years
Their voices were silenced their ballots were empty
But they did not stop in 1920
The war was not won in 1950
but there was no time to waste on pity
American women from all shades of life
Natives, Hispanics, and Blacks alike
Never stopped making and painting their signs
Never stopped fighting to gain voting rights
And when met with a pale opposing crowd
They raised their voices twice as loud
Nothing would stop them, not even their fear
They continued their fight, right up to the year
Of 1965
When a fateful rally was planned
To march the highway from Selma to
A piece of Montgomery land
Though their protest was peaceful
Bloody Sunday still did raze
And by state troopers meant to protect
they were beaten, gassed, and tazed
But despite the attacks the protesters
Would not be scared away
They continued their highway march
To span all of 3 days
Through this injustice they fought back
And they were paid off with
The Voting Rights Acts
The war was won in August of 1965
When colored woman across the nation
Were able to set down their signs
When they stepped off the streets and to
The polling place formed lines
When they stood together and said
“The right to vote is mine”
