Display Honors Women’s Suffrage

To commemorate the 78th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote, a Mission College instructor has combined photographs, timelines and brochures in a display that students can view between classes.

On Aug. 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution which gave women the right to vote became law. In addition, this year marks the 150th anniversary of the Women’s Rights Convention at Seneca Falls, N.Y.--a convergence of early feminists heralded by many scholars as the founders of the struggle for suffrage and equality.

“We need to keep the legacy alive,” said Regina Harvey McLaughlin, who prepared the hallway display near the entrance to the college’s instructional building. The early childhood development instructor said she hopes students unfamiliar with the movement will gain an appreciation as they walk by the montage Thursday and Friday.

“I had all this [material] in my house and I said, ‘Why don’t I take it to the college?’ ” she said.

McLaughlin assembled the display herself and featured such leading women activists as Sojourner Truth, the former slave turned abolitionist; Jovita Idar, a Texas journalist who co-founded the League of Mexican Women; and Billie Jean King, activist and former tennis pro.

“One of the women who really stands out in my mind is Fannie Lou Hamer,” McLaughlin said. Hamer worked for 15 years to overcome local laws that kept Southern blacks from the polls earlier this century.

“She lost her sharecropping job,” McLaughlin said. “The main thing about her is she was thrown in jail. . . . It’s important to be aware of these women and to share information with your children.”