"Spirit of 1776" wagon on exhibit in 2017 is in my future— plus women are on the march!

The “Spirit of 1776” suffrage wagon is in our future! on Vimeo.

On this last day of the Obama administration in Washington, DC, I am coming up for air after a well-deserved and health related break and rest. You can’t keep a suffrage history nut under control, however.

The nation is buzzing with news of the upcoming Women’s March in Washington, DC.

January dawned with the start of the long-awaited 2017 New York State suffrage centennial. Events and programs. local and county proclamations, exhibits and theatrical performances are popping up all over and this is expected to continue from now through 2020, the nation’s suffrage centennial when American women will have been voting for 100 years.

THE NEWS: U.S. President Obama did not award our national suffrage martyr with a citizens medal, a nomination that has been pending for more than a year. I’ve been in my cave for over a year working on this. The centennial campaign for Inez was under the auspices of the National Women’s History Project. The co-chair with me on this project, Bob Cooney, wrote a book about Inez Milholland (RememberingInez.com). That fueled his passion, and I was driven by how my grandmother Edna worked with Inez in the course of her suffrage work in New York City and on Long Island. The amount of awareness about Inez has been growing at a tremendous rate across the country. This has been due, in part, to the 2016 film, “Forward Into Light,” the 15-minute production from filmmaker Martha Wheelock. Get your own copy at: InezMilholland.org And stop by the Inez Milholland Centennial web site to sign up for the newsletter. We’re not going away!

THE GREAT NEWS: Hundreds of women will be gathering at Inez Milholland’s grave in Lewis, NY on Saturday, January 21, 2017— the day of the big women’s march in Washington, DC. It’s one of the hundreds of “sister” marches throughout the nation and throughout the world.

OUR NEXT INITIATIVE: To support the New York State Museum in putting the “Spirit of 1776” suffrage campaign wagon used by Edna Kearns on permanent exhibit past the 2020 national suffrage centennial. See video above. And we’re grooving on how the word has spread about how we stand on strong shoulders when linking the past with the present and future.

Marguerite Kearns is your host at the Suffrage Wagon Cafe.