 Welcome to Women's Equality Day and to a celebration that's being sponsored by the Vermont Suffrage Centennial Alliance and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, better known as WUF, but we want to begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land we have gathered on today. We pay our respects to the Abinachie elders past, present, and emerging for they hold the memories, the traditions, the cultures, and the hope of the peoples across our region. On this date, 100 years ago today, after an almost 70-year fight, the 19th Amendment was signed into law. It reads, we want the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. Section 2, the Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. However, this triumph came at a cost. By 1870, suffrage leaders were embittered that women had not been included when African American men gained the right to vote in the 15th Amendment. And subsequently, to win suffrage for themselves, they engage in the strategy based on racist ideologies that included racial animosity. They were complicit in ostracizing and marginalizing African American suffrages who had worked with them on the forefront of the struggle to secure voting rights since the 1800s. While the 19th Amendment legally gave all women the right to vote, the Constitution actually left the details of voting to individual states rather than the federal government. And to discourage people of color from voting, many states began adding restrictive laws and discriminatory practices. Native Americans and Asian Americans were disenfranchised by denial of citizenship. And it wasn't until 1962 that all states extended suffrage to Native Americans. As immigrants, Asian Americans were prohibited from becoming U.S. citizens for decades until 1952. And these groups also experienced the same voter suppression challenges at the ballot box to keep them from voting. Finally, in 1965, the Federal Voting Rights Act, the B.R.A., prohibited any election practice that denied the right to vote on account of race and permanently removed all barriers to voting for everyone. Today, Vermont is actually a leader in voting rights. However, in 2013, the Supreme Court struck down crucial provisions of the Voting Rights Act that protected voters. And as a result, 25 states and active voter suppression laws restricting access to the polls, which disproportionately affects people of color. I want to urge you to go to the Vermont Suffrage Centennial Alliance website and take the Vermont Voting Pledge. And you can do that at VTSuffrage2020.org. You can also find a list of all of the events and activities that are being planned in Vermont. I honor the suffrages, all of them. So I encourage you to do that. Today, we have a wonderful lineup of speakers who will each have about four minutes or less to make a statement about what all this means to them. And at the end, if there are people who would like in the audience to have an open mic and say something, they themselves can speak as well. So I want to begin by introducing Lisa Seneca with the Vermont Commission woman, and she is the chair of that group, to live in a state that has a great deal of promise as well. But we know that we also live in a land of broken promises. And there is no reason in the world that we cannot begin to fulfill those promises, and it needs to start now. And women have the power to do that. It's easy for us, especially right now, with COVID-19 to get caught up in our own challenges and for us to get very myopic, working on all the very important issues that we are working on. But I do want to take a couple of minutes just to widen the view and look at the bigger picture. There's a pretty well-known Supreme Court justice who has been asked the same question many, many times. Ruth Bader Ginsburg has repeatedly been asked how many female justices need to be on the Supreme Court at the same time for there to be enough women on the court. And her consistent answer is nine. She gives that answer. There are a number of folks who are pretty taken aback by that and asked the question, could it possibly be fair and equitable if there was an all-female court? And this is her answer, which I love. Nearly the first 200 years of our country's history, we had a single gender court. We had you, far too few people, thought that there was a problem with that or that there would be inequities with an all-male court. That we're going to end up with an all-female court. I'm not even sure that that's what she wants, but here's the point that I think she's making. Women and people of color have the rules that govern us and the judgments that have come down by the court that control our lives have all been made by men and primarily white men. We also have to ask ourselves, if an all-female court would be inherently inequitable, don't we need to revisit a lot of the rulings that we have already had because that all-male court would also have been creating inequality intentional or not. Putties are not just felt by women and people of color, indigenous communities, the LGBTQ community. We can go down a very long list of people who have not experienced equal treatment under the law and continue to not have that equal treatment. It is a fact that every federal bill that has ever been signed into law has been signed by a man and a white man. It is true that every piece of federal legislation that has ever been put on the President's desk to sign has been passed by a majority of white men to a very large degree for state laws throughout the United States, including in Vermont. For 100 years now, since 1920, women have had the power to change that. We've been able to change that because of women like Francis Ellen Watkins Harper, Mary Ann Shad Carey, Susan B. Anthony, who begged no bans pardon, Mary Church Terrell, Nanny Helen Burroughs, and Ida B. Wells, Roxanne Dunbar, these women pushed for the vote, even when it was hard, even when it came at great personal cost. And in the case of the women of color who were a huge part of the suffrage movement, those women fought for our vote, even though they knew getting the vote very likely did not mean that they would have the vote. Today, women in the United States outnumber men by 7 million. There are 7 million more women in this country than men. The power to change our laws, our leaders, our lives, and the world. And although this year marks the first 100 years of suffrage, it doesn't need to take another 100 years to make those changes a reality. Every local, state, and federal election is an opportunity to do that. It's up to each one of us to grab onto that power and make it a reality. We believe in women's vote. Okay, thank you. Okay, keep the light here. I've been asked to speak as a member of the League of Women Voters of Champlain Valley. It's been 100 years since women were finally given the right to vote. But have we accomplished the goal of making sure everyone age 18 and older can vote in our local, state, and national elections? In order to vote, you need to register to vote. When you register to vote, you need to provide an address where you are currently living, along with your driver's license or the last four digits of your Social Security number. Unfortunately, not all of us have secure housing with an address. During this time of the COVID pandemic, we are realizing how important it is for every individual to be able to shelter in place with a bathroom of their own. Secure housing is part of staying healthy. With another hurricane approaching on our southern coast and fires raging in the west, we will need to help our neighbors build homes again. Where or how will all these people who've lost their homes and communities be able to vote? Fortunately, city and town clerks are able to back up their voter registration list with computers, so check your voter registration list to make sure you are honest. Every human being needs a place to call home. As we move toward mail-in voting, voters need secure homes with addresses from which they can vote. In this COVID pandemic time, many more voters are choosing to use mail-in ballots. For the next election, everyone in Vermont who is registered to vote will be sent a mail-in ballot beat during the last half of September. So watch forward in your mail, and you can vote early by mailing it in at least two weeks prior to the election on November 3rd, or you can still deliver it to your polling place on Election Day. The League of Women Voters is supporting mail-in voting. We've published an information document to help people learn more about it. The League still supports in-person voting at the polls, but we need more poll workers. September 1st, special day, we'd like you to sign up to be a poll worker. Now let's get back to honoring all the women who think to bring about greater equality. Jane Adams will help build housing and a community for immigrants in Chicago. Eleanor Roosevelt will help write the Declaration of Human Rights, which says we all need a safe place to live. And now, in my first thing, we need one of the founders of the League of Women Voters. The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom has been working years and years to prevent war. We don't need any more bombing of homes. Climate change is destroying homes. No more war. We need to stop building weapons and start building homes that are safe and secure for every human being. Then we will have a democracy where everyone has a voice for their home. Well, hello everyone. This is such an exciting day and such a beautiful day, and so many memories of our struggle in the past and uniting for the struggle in the future. I'd like to take us back to history to 1920 and before 1920. In 1913, activist Alice Paul created the most astonishing parade in front of the White House during the inauguration of President Wilson. That's been wearing white, I think, in pain, the thing to do. The parade was led by a woman wearing, a woman riding a white horse, and it galvanized the nation. This was the biggest parade that had happened so far in the United States. My name is Alma. Yeah, yeah. But the next year, 1914, war broke out in Europe, and a few years later, the President was faced with bringing the United States into the war. Women besieged him from all sides. Jane Adams, there she is, the social worker and one of the founders of the Women's International League, pleaded with him to propose mediation to the warring nations. Here are some of the words to the preamble, to the women's peace party that she was part of, as was by grandmother Lola Maverick-Loy. Women have a peculiar moral passion of revolt against both the cruelty and waste of war. Since women are the ones charged with the future of our children and with the care of the helpless and the unfortunate, they do not want to endure without protest that added burden of maimed and invalid men and poverty-stricken widows and orphans. Women, in other words, are sick and tired of being exploited as a result of poor governmental judgment, greed, and violence. They want to share in deciding between war and peace. But another faction of the Suffrage Movement was thinking ahead. They knew that the only way women were going to win the vote would be if the men in Congress voted for it, and by 1917 the men in Congress had voted to go to war. So Kerry Chapman-Cat, who was headed the largest suffrage movement at that time, the National American Women's Suffrage Association, made the controversial decision to support the war ever, which shifted the public's perception in favor of the suffragettes who were now perceived as patriotic. One wonders if they had stood firm and refused to support the war, would Wilson have chosen mediation, and would Congress have dragged their feet even longer to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment? As you know the history, it took several times to go through Congress to win the vote. I bring this up only to say that there have been many splits and subdivisions in the feminist and peace movement, but now more than ever women need to speak out against militarism, nuclear modernization and war. The presence of the military, not only here in the U.S., but in the 800 U.S. bases around the world, have always been bad news for women. I urge you to find out about and support the Secretary General of the United Nations and his plea for peace to extend the global ceasefire. Read about it on the website World Beyond War, 53 nations support it. It says, our world faces a common enemy, COVID-19. The virus does not care about nationality or ethnicity, faction or faith, it attacks all relentlessly. Meanwhile, armed conflict rages around the world and in our cities. But the sickness that is in the sickness of war and fight disease that is ravaging our world, it starts by stopping the fighting everywhere. Now, that is what our human family needs now and forever. To gain the right to vote. They called on society to rise to a level of peace and high moral standards. Yes, we are here to celebrate and remember the time when our country did right by our citizens. And today, we must also remind ourselves that women's country commemorates women's suffrage. It is the celebration of the suffrage of white women, women of many backgrounds, black, indigenous, Latin American, Asian Americans are part of the struggle to get the barriers to voting. But today, but today as we celebrate, we have come together as a diverse group of people concerned about our future and the importance of everyone's right to vote. We're getting it right today. In the spirit of my foremothers, black women stirred by their faith and commitment to their people. I'm here to celebrate our right and duty to vote. Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965. There has been an erosion to these rights recently. It is unthinkable to hear about voter suppression in 2020, extra effort to vote. But it is critically worth it. Insisting on voting is the only way to protect our votes. And as we approach this election cycle, we are being called upon to work together for the good of our families, communities, and our nation. Our votes help us to strengthen and build strong communities. And every time I vote, I remember that my vote has a long and difficult history. Every time I consider how I will vote, I remember my foremothers, black women, whose names we Mary Elizabeth Jackson, Sadie L Adams, Daisy Elizabeth, Betiola Louise Ortson, Margaret Murray Washington, Josephine St. Pierre Rutherford, and Cooper, with an episcopalia like me. Sojourner Truth, Lannister's Banks, Fowley Franklin Cook, Ida B. Wells Barton, Mary Anshad Carey, Frances Ellen, Watkins-Hofford, Harper, Mary Church Terrell, Manny Helen Burrows, Rosa Parks, Bainy-Louhanne-Howe Bethune, and countless others. The Law of the National Association of Colored Women, which is lifting as we climb of the founding president of the National Association of Colored Women, find that phrase struggle for equality and advancement. It's not about individuals, but about working as we help ourselves. Very responsibility now, those who have gone on before, and those who have yet to be born. And as we gather to celebrate women's suffrage, we're sure that the rights that we have were not only hard earned, but that are right to those who must never be taken for granted. Your vote is needed. Remember that we are lifting as we climb. I would like to introduce Molly Grace, who is the candidate for Vermont Suicadic Problem. And she's very, very soft. I'm going to do a sound check. Good morning, everyone. Well, I think it's still morning, but here we are. I want to thank Marguerite. I want to thank the Vermont Suffrage Centennial Alliance and all of the amazing women who have been working tirelessly for the last year to put on today's event and events across the state. I think it's really, really incredible. And thanks to all the men here supporting women, including our timekeeper. Thank you. Today we recognize Women's Quality Day and the 100-year anniversary of the 19th Amendment. The supposed moment when women won the right to vote in this country. But more accurately, when white women won that right and women of color were blocked from the voting booth for 45 years until the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Since 1920, we have come a long way. But we have so much work to do. We still face systemic challenges to our elections, including misinformation about vote by mail, polling location closures, and attempt to defund the U.S. Postal Service. And just recently, a president who said that if he didn't win this election, the election was rigged. These are uncertain times, and we face unprecedented global challenges. A global pandemic, deep economic insecurity, justifiable social unrest around our country. This will be the election of our lifetimes. But throughout history, whenever there's crisis, women step up. In this election, we saw a new wave of activism and civic engagement led by women. In January 2017, women's marches around the country and on the mall dwarfed the presidential inauguration. Then, in 2018, we saw the highest turnout rate for a midterm election in recent history, with women making up 53% of the electorate. And, in turn, voting a record number of women and women to color into office around this country. I'm not good. This 11th, right here in Vermont, we had the highest voter turnout in a primary ever with honors voting, and dozens of women running for office across our state. It continues every single day. And here's what we have to do. Next month, our Secretary of State will mail out roughly 480,000 ballots to registered Vermont voters. That's incredible. That is historic. And we have a lot to do. Right now, you need to make sure your address is correct, so that ballots reach intended recipients. Talk to your neighbors, talk to your family, talk to your community, make sure they go online and make sure their address is up to date. We also need to register as many people to vote as we can, every single day. We'll go out. And then our job is to make sure people have the information they need to fill them out correctly and to get them returned, and not to wait until the last minute. And perhaps, most importantly, and I speak from a place of personal privilege, if you may, we have to encourage a generation that has or has not, for one reason or another, always participated to participate, to vote, to get involved at the community level, at the county level, at the regional level, at the statewide level. We have to mobilize a generation. And in closing, I think our greatest responsibility maybe is this. In commemorating, not celebrating, but commemorating this 100-year anniversary and Women's Equality Day, to send a message to women and girls across Vermont, that participation is possible, that government is accessible, and that it represents all of us. Thank you so much. I stand in solidarity with all the amazing women here today. Let's vote for women, let's elect women, and let's get out of the vote. Let's do a welcome to Carolyn Branigan, who is a candidate for the Vermont Times. It's meant to be. If you can't hear me, wave or something. I'm going to try and hold this really close to my mouth. People I know are here. So my name is Carolyn Branigan. I live up in Franklin County, on Lake Champlain, about 10 miles from Canada, north of Burlington. I'm running for the position of Vermont Treasurer. I have served in the legislature. I did seven terms in the House and one term in the Senate. I loved my work in Montpelier, but I got cancer. I couldn't run again, so I had to take a couple of years off. Now I'm better, so what else to do? My tour runs for office, right? So I want to, I will speak briefly this morning. I want to talk to you about two women, my grandmothers. Both of them were alive in 1920, and, you know, I asked them while they were alive about how they felt about acquiring finally that vote. They were young women, married by then, and having babies. They were home. I know they were working hard, but that must have been a significant event in their life. My father's mother was tall and big-bone. She looked a lot like her. She was a farmwife. She worked hard, her whole life, milked cattle. During the depression, she and my grandfather made ends meet by making butter. Her children grew up. My father went away to war, and I know that it broke her heart. She had one of those stars in her window for four years while he was away. But he came back, and she was so proud to be an American, so proud of him and so proud of our country. They flew an American flag out in front of their farmhouse until she died when I was six years old, so I barely remember her. My other grandmother, my mom's mother, was a beauty. I can tell from pictures of her. She had long, dark hair, sparkling black eyes. She was beautiful. She also was married to a farmer and worked very, very hard. She grew up in poverty. Her family didn't have a lot of money, but she had her looks going for her advantage. So she had seven children, and she did a wonderful job raising those kids. They all went to college. One was an officer, went to Vietnam. She was an Abnaki. We have the largest settlement of Indigenous people in the state, the Mississkoi Band of the Abnaki. And she never voted. I know that for a fact. Although she was qualified, she had registered to vote. She never went to the polls. My grandmother on my mother's side always stayed in the background, even though she was stunning. She stayed in the background, covered her head, kind of stood like this all the time. In the background, she was terrified. Remember, after 19, a terrible time, we now recognize that that was bad. And somehow my grandmother and her brothers and sisters escaped all that, but it occurred during her lifetime. And she was afraid to call attention to herself, so she didn't. She never voted. She died when I was 20, just barely old enough to know anything, you know, when you're 20. But you think you know everything. Unfortunately, I never asked her about all that, but I want you to, if your grandparents are still alive, ask them about their voting experiences. And you yourself, if you're not already registered to vote, get out there and do it. Yes, we need people to register. We need women to take the vote by the horns. So go do it. Vote. Thank you, Carolyn Brain again. We served on the Ways and Means Committee together. As the vice chair, Janet Ansel was the chair. And not a day went by that I didn't think about Governor Madeline Cunan being the first chairwoman, as we call them, two in the House and two in the Senate, get together quarterly for the revenue forecast and to look over the budget for the quarter, they usually take turns chairing that committee. And when then Representative Cunan, now Governor Cunan, former Governor Cunan, went to take her turn chairing that money committee, the men had already had a meeting and they said, oh, Madeline, we skipped your turn. And I remember that story so well because she said she had to go outside in the hallway to collect herself so they didn't see how emotional she was. And her generation, we've been told there was a meeting before the meeting and your turn's gone. And 2020, it is our turn in 20s because although I grew up deeply respecting and admiring women like Alice Paul and Elizabeth Katie Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, I collected every Susan B. Anthony dollar I could find, I grew up and started to realize that I didn't quite stand on their shoulders, that their shoulders weren't necessarily broad enough for me. And I look a lot more like women who had to wait 32 years, 42 years and 45 years for the right to vote after 1920. And so I wore something that to me would symbolize looking at images of young women trying to access schools, trying to go to college, trying to vote and in some cases losing reputation, losing agency, losing freedom, being jailed, being beaten and in some cases losing their lives for trying to vote in this country. I stand on their shoulders. That when the Voting Rights Act was passed, that was 100 years, more than 100 years from when Sojourner Truth stood before a group of abolitionists and suffragists and said in her Afro-Dutch dialect that there's some question about her exact words, ain't I a woman too? And she specifically spoke to a narrative that was being pushed by white men at the time that spoke only to white women. Oh, we need to take care of women. We need to make sure they're helped into carriages, make sure they're helped over mud puddles, make sure they're cared for and kept in the home. Well, Sojourner Truth had something to say about that because she had plowed fields, she had worked hard, she could go arm to arm and toe to toe with any man in that room. She had given birth to 13 children who were taken away from her and sold into slavery. And she was a woman too. And so I stand before you on her shoulders, on the shoulders like Governor Cunin, on the shoulders of women who fought and still recognizing we have so far to go that Stacey Abrams would have become our first black governor in the country and that election was stolen from her. Pay attention, more elections will be stolen and more people will be disenfranchised and we celebrate our right to vote here. We still have a long way to go. We have a long way to go so that new American voters can vote in our community, including folks who are incarcerated, including women down the road at our women's prison are enfranchised to vote fully and know the power of their vote. On the shoulders of those women after 100 years as the first woman of color set to take a seat in the Vermont State Senate. I would like now to introduce Erica Reddick who is a candidate for the Vermont Senate. Thank you everyone, thank you Marguerite for inviting me to be here today. It is an absolute honor to share with you. On the 2nd of November 1920 over 8 million American women voted in elections for the first time. The story of the United States as we hear today is not one of perfection but of progressive sanctification. While we have not always lived up to the promise that all men are created equal in each successive generation we have fought to make it so and the 19th amendment guaranteeing women the vote was one of those fights. Now you'll notice I said guaranteed women the right not granted. It was the intent of the framers of our nation to create a system of governance that would protect our rights that exist naturally just for being born human. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In our representative republic government exists solely to protect those rights. Women's inability, our inability to participate in our own governance was a mistake and a misuse of government's expressed purpose to protect our natural rights. After World War I President Woodrow Wilson praised the women who upheld our nation and urged Congress to grant us equal rights. But you see in this country the power comes from the people. Neither Wilson nor any of our elected officials were responsible for granting women the right to vote. We are governed we are governed from the bottom up not the top down. The people demanded change and on the 2nd of November we saw that change come. Remember our representatives make rules by our consent and that starts with your vote. That is why it is imperative that we not be complacent in standing by and being governed by our elected officials. It is our right to maintain our liberty and limit the power of government to impose on our lives. It is our duty to participate in the process of deciding what is right and how laws will be administered. It is our honor to ensure that the American dream is true for everyone. Vote matters, matter. Vote. I am a city councilor with the Burlington city in front of my city hall. As Margaret said, I am now a city councilor. I was elected this town meeting day. Be careful what I wish for. But I have it. As many of you may know me I had a long history in working with the state in affordable housing. to be. That's what got me into housing. I was an early social worker and I saw he certainly couldn't vote. And so that guided my career. My career is the wonderful women who preceded me, my two grandmothers and my mother. And I was very fortunate growing up in this community to have a very well educated grandmother who was in fact active with this suffrage group. She was living here in her 20s. She had two young boys at home. She was college educated. My grandfather taught at the university. What was she to do? She was being told, believe it or not, by this anti sandwich, how voting would affect the fertility of women. It would affect my back. That same grandmother was actually active in the American Association of University Women. They actually did a research paper to debunk the myth that going to college and voting affected fertility. So there she is, sitting at home with two babies and we got to do something. And so she continued her fight and actually was pregnant with my uncle when she was, when the vote was passed. And I just give her so much credit and approved after three babies fertility was not affected nor was my dad who had many decades of community service here in this city hall in the state legislature and I think passed on to me the value of community service. So I guess this is a personal thing yet, but I think it has affected so many women in untouched ways. My Irish grandmother who was an immigrant here, she was just plain happy to have a house and food on her table. And every day she would say how happy she was to be in America, to have the right to vote, to say her piece and to disagree with my other grandfather. One of the things I read about the reason not to vote in addition to fertility was the women's vote would cancel out the men's vote. And I think wouldn't that might be a good thing. And in many households it did and it was a good thing. So look where we've come since then. And then I just want to honor my mother who supported my dad and all of his public service and again was my mentor about speak up, get out there, say what you want to say, act the way you want to act, vote. And she said I don't care if your father doesn't agree with you, get out there and do your thing, get out there and vote and get out there and be active. So that's what I'm trying to do and I just thank all the in the last 100 years all the women who is my mayor, the first female mayor of the city of Winnowsky. Inviting me here today and for doing the work of having this event, talking about voting and honoring the 100th anniversary of the 19th event. So as Marguerite mentioned I am the first woman elected, serve as mayor of the city of Winnowsky and I am very, that afforded me the opportunity to serve my community in this way. Voting is also a door to service. So as we celebrate the 100th anniversary I reflect both on the importance of one's vote and on the women and men who fought for these rights and who continue to do so today. There is always work to do to enfranchise more Americans and reduce the barriers to participate in the public process. A vote is a voice in our democracy. While the 19th amendment expanded who could participate in our democracy, additional laws have come since then trying to work on that expansion and I hope to watch participation by all segments of our society continue to expand. Throughout the history of the United States which voices should be included has been up for debate and it has changed time and again. We've come a long way from the days of reserving this right for only white male landowners but there is still room to grow and in Winnowsky we've been having a community conversation about how to include more voices in our local government process. So turning away from the past and looking towards the present, this November Winnowsky voters will have the opportunity to decide if we should expand municipal voting to all of our city's residents regardless of their citizenship status, 10% of our population. States have the authority to determine who votes at the local and municipal level so this is a conversation that we can have albeit a complex one. I've heard from many non-citizen residents who deeply value the importance of voting and would like to participate in local decision making even as they continue working towards full citizenship. I've heard support from current voters. We'd like to extend this right to all of their neighbors and I've heard concern from residents who also deeply value voting but feel strong that it's the right reserved for US citizens at every level. The strong feelings that folks have on this topic shows us just how important the act of voting is in our society. If you are a registered voter in Winnowsky you will be able to weigh in on this change on the November general election ballot. As we think about who to include in our local voting process we are watching history in real time. Voting rights in America are not cut and dry they are not something we can ignore or discount and I hope today we are all reminded of how important one's vote is that it is something worth fighting for and that we can't take it for granted. Thank you. I hope that you'll stick with us. We also have a lot of wonderful materials on the resource table here and at the end of the program we'll open it up for anyone who might like to say a few words about voting, voting what it means to you, why you came today. I would like now to introduce Professor Emeritus Robert Acklin from Student Life. I have four words to share. Let's expand the circle. It's not about us versus them. Everyone has a right to express a voice or many voices. We all need a seat at the table and the table can be expanded. Men can be feminists, women's rights. Many people support women's rights. We all benefit when more people are heard. Let's all celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment and let's remember that we need to keep expanding the table so everyone can sit and be heard. Actually let's stand up and be heard. Imagine that you are face to face with another person. That person may look like you or not. Same gender, same skin tone, same clothing, same experiences or not. Then gaze into that person's eye. Step back and let someone else join your circle. Step back again and let other people join you. None of them look exactly like you. None of them are exactly like you. All of us are unique. Yet all of us seek joy and comfort and a sense of belonging. We have that in common. We have a right to express our voices and an obligation to hear the voices of other people. Let's expand the circle. Let's help each other find joy, give comfort and build community. Let's support people who have been pushed to the edges, who have been marginalized. Step back, give room, expand the circle. All humans, in fact all living beings can join the circle of understanding. And we understand more because of our diversity. Imagine a planet where everyone can smile, can communicate, can vote, can be heard. Let's bring peace to that planet. Four words. Let's expand the circle. Since liberation. Not a very monetary reward, but many other ways. But what I'm here to celebrate are the suffragettes and the suffragettes who have had so much courage and perseverance in a hundred years' struggle for the vote. And also the women like Fannie Lou Hamer, like Ella Baker, Burley Embers all the women who were part of the civil rights movement that expanded it to black women, other women of color. But I want to say those women were radical women. And that's another group that's often not in the circle. We look at them now and they're Victorian costumes and we forget how radical they were. I once got the Susan B. Anthony Prize and the story I told was about how she threatened the smack of preacher because I wanted to break that stereotype that they were just so nice Victorian women because that's not who they were. They were brave, gutsy women and we need more of that today. Votes for women. However, is it some kind of ironic joke that who we get to vote for this year is a serial sexual assaultor, the man who betrayed Anita Hill for his camaraderie with his brothers in the Senate and has his own sexual assault accusation? That's who we get to vote for. We do get cover hires, which is historic and something for sure. And I'm not saying we shouldn't vote. We need to use it. But it really hasn't gotten us a lot because where are we now? Alice Paul is the one who came up with the ERA. We don't have an Equal Rights Amendment. Still, today it's 2020, we don't have an Equal Rights Amendment. Women who fought for women's liberation too. We don't have an ERA. Three or four women a day are killed by domestic violence. There's a 70% increase in suicides among young girls and there are thousands of rape kids sitting on shelves never being used. So we have a lot of work to do. Alice Paul changed herself to the White House feds and she went to jail for it and she was force fed, which is a kind of torture. The women in England bombed and burned 60 buildings, but they never hurt injured a soul. They also tore up golf courses. I can think of what a New Jersey might benefit from some return to the land and away from the pesticides and the pests. I want to inform people about something that this is so supposedly equality. But as I said, we don't even have an Equal Rights Amendment. What we're getting as a substitute in the Democratic platform, I guess, is the Equal Rights Act. The Equal Rights Act is actually a danger to women if it is not amended because in that Equal Rights Act it would change the word sex to gender identity and that will destroy Title IX, Title VII, Title XI, and a lot of our rights are rights to privacy and women's sports. So we have a long way to go and I wish we would have some of the courage that those women have and remember that that's what got it there. It was a long struggle, a hundred years, and then more struggling to expand the rights for women of color and to then to let it to a left out of the movement in the beginning. So we have a kind of a, in my mind, faux feminist movement that won't even use the word lesbian because we have to be queer women because we have to once again put ourselves into a pack of men who don't even respect us. So we need to do some work. We should get an Equal Rights Amendment passed. The equality act should be amended or just not passed, although I would like to see improved rights for lesbians and gays. But I want to celebrate the suffragists in the work they did. The vote is there as a tool, but I can't say that it's done much about violence against women or a whole lot of other things. So we have lots of work to do. Let's go on with women's liberation. Something in the audience. Anybody? You know Equal Rights? Vote. Thank you for coming today.