Remembering Susan B. Anthony 1

Inayah has sent us this write-up — thanks!

Remembering Susan B. Anthony and Her Fight for Women’s Rights

                                                                                                 by Inayah Shahnaz Sakhawat

“It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people who formed the Union…. Men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less”

“I pray every single moment of my life; not on my knees but with my work. My prayer is to lift women to equality with men. Work and worship are one with me”

                                                                                                            – Susan B. Anthony

March 8 was International Women’s Day – a day to remember how women were mistreated and did not have as many rights as they today.  Also, it is a day to celebrate the achievements that women have made and how they contributed to the changes in the world and the way we see it.

Susan B. Anthony was an activist who had fought for women’s rights, equality and much more.  She started many campaigns and believed in not just women’s equality with men, but in all human equality no matter what race or skin colour.

Anthony was born into an American Quaker family committed to social improvement and she was involved in it her whole life.  Even at the age of seventeen, Anthony would collect anti-slavery petitions. Some of her campaigns and projects were: The Women’s Loyal National League; American Equal Rights Association; a women’s rights newspaper called the Revolution; The National Women’s Suffrage Association; and much, much more.

It was not easy – all of her campaigns and protests lead to much challenges and difficulties in her life.  When she started to campaign for women’s rights, she was wrongly accused of trying to destroy the institution of marriage.  In 1872, Susan B. Anthony and almost 50 other women attempted to vote in the presidential election, and only fifteen were accepted while the rest were turned back.  Anthony was arrested on November 18 in the same year for illegally voting.  She spoke in all of the 29 villages and towns of MonroeCounty where she was going to be held.  She said, “Is it a crime for a U.S. citizen to vote? We no longer petition legislature or Congress to give us the right to vote, but appeal to women everywhere to exercise their too long neglected ‘citizen’s right’”.

I can only imagine how difficult it was, changing the vision of so many people.  I am a girl of twelve years (not a women yet), but this inspires even me – a young girl.  Susan B. Anthony is now one of the best known women of U.S. history and is always remembered as a hero who fought for women’s suffrage and much more. Sadly, she did not live to see the amazing results of her movement with National American Women’s Suffrage Association.  At the time of her death in 1906, women had gotten suffrage in Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, and Idaho and later several other bigger states followed.  Legal rights for married women had been established in most states and most professions had at least a few women members.  36,000 women were attending colleges and universities, up from zero a few decades earlier. Two years before she died, Anthony said, “The world has never witnessed a greater revolution than in the sphere of woman during these fifty years”.

I honestly feel that Susan B. Anthony was one of the greatest women to fight for human rights and women’s rights.  I think she would have been proud to see all the bright, strong and independent women and girls we have in the world today.  However, there are women and girls still fighting for their rights in many countries in Asia, Africa and South America.  There is long way to go before the people of the world accept, acknowledge and support women in gaining their rights.  The struggle continues and Susan B. Anthony is the torch of hope that shines the way.