Voting Now: Turning Rights into Reality
Our podcast is made by lawyers, for everyone. We tackle the sticky questions about democracy through the lens of voting access. Our guests include community leaders, activists, scholars, and students who have agreed to share their insight on the heroes of our past, the inequities that persist, and the movements inviting your participation.
Voting Now: Turning Rights into Reality
Elaine Weiss: What can we learn from history?
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Oregon Historical Society | Oregon Federal Bar Association
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Season 1
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Episode 6
“The contributions of thousands of black women are being discovered. It’s not just Ida B Wells, it’s not just Mary Church Terrell — it’s women in every city, in every state,” said Elaine Weiss in our interview. Weiss is the author of, “The Women’s Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote,” an award-winning book that re-frames the 19th amendment.
2020 is the centennial of ratification of the 19th amendment and of that Weiss said, “What the centennial has done is stimulate this broader deeper more diverse research.” Her book presents a panoramic view of the decades long struggle to win the right to vote. She writes about how women of color lost the right to vote, the whitewashing of history, and what modern movements can learn from the suffragists. Weiss reflected on the current political climate saying, “I think that we are in that period of organizing, educating, and agitating what Susan B. Anthony talked about... The protest is important, the education is essential, but there has to be a strategy, what exactly are you going to work towards?