Kansas City Kansas Community College is hosting its annual Women’s Equality Day luncheon and program from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. Aug. 29 in Upper Jewell on the KCKCC Main Campus, 7250 State Ave.
Women’s Equality Day commemorates the granting of women the right to vote in the United States. First proposed in 1878, women known as suffragists worked peacefully for more than 70 years to gain equal voting rights. Some would try to pass suffrage acts in individual states. Others organized parades, vigils or even hunger strikes. After President Woodrow Wilson changed his position and started supporting a woman’s right to vote, other politicians soon followed his lead. On Aug. 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution was certified as law, and since 1972, every president has issued a proclamation for Women’s Equality Day.
The presentation, “Celebrating Kansas City’s Black Suffragists,” will look at the research of the Greater Kansas City Black Suffragist Committee, which was formed with a mission to “enshrine the lives of those who dedicated themselves to a just cause, to illuminate the dynamic history of local suffrage and the fight for women’s rights and to inspire our community to continue to protect the right of all people to vote.”
Dr. Carmaletta Williams will talk about the long history of Black women’s activism and the intersection with the struggles for abolition, suffrage, economic freedom and civil rights. She will also include the contributions of Black Kansas Citians such as Ida Bowman Becks, Minnie Crosthwaite, Josephine Yates and others who took up the struggle locally for suffrage and civil rights.
The program is co-hosted by Women & Gender Advocacy, Counseling & Advocacy, Women’s Studies, Center for Equity, Inclusion, & Multicultural Engagement, American Association of University Women and the KCKCC Art Gallery.
The event is free to attend, but reservations are requested. Reservations can be sent to jcarsonearhart@kckcc.edu. For additional information, contact Jennifer Gieschen at gieschen@kckcc.edu or 913-288-7193.