Persons - A New Day Has Come

 

 

 

 

OUR 81ST ANNIVERSARY AS "PERSONS"  A LITTLE BIT OF HISTORY!

 

 

This is the story of women who were ground-breakers. These brave women from the early 1900's made all the difference in the lives we live today. Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The women were innocent and defenseless, but when, in North America ,

women picketed in front of the White House,

carrying signs asking for the vote, they were jailed.

 

 

 And by the end of the first night in jail, those women 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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Dora  Lewis)
They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed  her
head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate,
Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack.
Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging,
beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

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, 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.

All women who have ever voted, have ever owned property,

have ever enjoyed equal rights need to remember that women's rights

had to be fought for in Canada as well. 

Do our daughters and our sisters know the price that was paid

to earn rights for women here, in North America ?   

2010 is the 81th Anniversary of the Persons Case in Canada , 
which finally declared women in Canada to be Persons! 

 

 

"Knowledge is Freedom: hide it, and it withers; share it, and it blooms"

(P. Hill)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A New Day Has Come - Celine Dion

 

 

 

A new day has...come


I was waiting for so long
For a miracle to come
Everyone told me to be strong
Hold on and don't shed a tear


Through the darkness and good times
I knew I'd make it through
And the world thought I had it all
But I was waiting for you


Hush, love


I see a light in the sky
Oh, it's almost blinding me
I can't believe
I've been touched by an angel with love
Let the rain come down and wash away my tears
Let it fill my soul and drown my fears
Let it shatter the walls for a new, new sun
A new day has...come


Where it was dark now there's light
Where there was pain now there's joy
Where there was weakness, I found my strength
All in the eyes of a boy


Hush, love


I see a light in the sky
Oh, it's almost blinding me
I can't believe
I've been touched by an angel with love
Let the rain come down and wash away my tears
Let it fill my soul and drown my fears
Let it shatter the walls for a new, new sun
A new day has...come


A new day has...come
Ohhh, a light... OOh

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

from Marilyn