Women’s Equality Day celebrated in Poplar Bluff

In 1920, the U.S. accepted the 19th Amendment, which established women’s right to vote. In August of that year, Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the amendment and solidified it in the Constitution.

The Butler County NAACP, the City of Poplar Bluff and First United Methodist Church came together to host a Women’s Equality Day celebration last week for the 100th anniversary of that ratification.

NAACP interim secretary Sonia Ellis and Matt Winters, city manager, both participated in the event.

Mayor Robert Smith presented a proclamation recognizing the struggle for the 19th Amendment and naming Aug. 26, 2020, as Women’s Equality Day.

David Steward, pastor of First United Methodist Church, said the city approached them to host the event, and the church was “delighted” to do so.

“It’s an exciting thing to be able to celebrate something this enormous that we may take for granted, but for me to think that neither one of my grandmothers would have had the right to vote when they were turning the age my daughter did a few years ago when she became 18, it’s just amazing to think about,” he said.

Between the in-person event and the Facebook live event on First United Methodist Church’s page, around 300 people viewed the program.

Winters said he did research into the 19th amendment before speaking at the event and found a flyer with 12 reasons women should vote, which was put out by the National Women’s Suffrage Publishing Company in New York City during the suffrage movement.

“It was definitely written in a different language than we use today,” he said.

Some of these reasons he read include laws affect women as much as men, laws were being made about women without their input, laws affecting children should have the mother’s point of view, and “it’s for the common good of all.”

Winters said women’s votes increased education budgets and local health spending, decreased infant mortality rates and increased spending on social programs and charities.

“An interesting fact I found is that if you look at the U.S. Census Bureau, women are 51% of the U.S. population, and women (voters) have outnumbered men in every presidential election since 1980,” he said.

As a husband and a father to a 21-year-old daughter, Winters said, it’s important for him to encourage the women in his life to have opinions, be informed on issues and go out to vote in every election so their opinions can be heard.

“One of the reasons I love and respect my wife is because she has an opinion. She’s willing to share that opinion and voice that opinion,” Winters said “We disagree sometimes; she has priorities to her that maybe because I’m a man, I don’t see it as a priority to myself. It’s important for her to have that voice and be able to take that voice to the ballot box and vote whether it be on a ballot initiative or a candidate.”

This also translates to his daughter.

“ ... It’s important that I, as her father, encourage her and support her. We took her the first time she turned 18 to the polls and stood beside her as she filled out her ballot and put her ballot in the machine. That’s important to me as her father that she understands that’s not something that came by easily,” Winters said.

Winters also has an 18-year-old son, who, he said, is politically active, and he attributes that to his wife being outspoken on her opinion and encouraging him to do the same.

Maria Francisco, local licensed clinical social worker and one of two keynote speakers, looked back at the history of women.

“In the first few chapters of the Bible, we were taught that women, like men, were created in the likeness of God’s own image,” she said. “The Bible states that God created man.

“In fact, it tells us that he created man out of dust. However, please remember that Eve was not made from dust. She was carefully designed from living flesh and bone.”

Other notable women from the last 100 years, she said, include Princess Diana of Wales of her charity work for the poor, Audrey Hepburn as an iconic actress and humanitarian worker with the Red Cross, Mother Teresa, who received the Nobel Peace Prize for work with the poor, Rosa Parks for her non-violent protests against discrimination, Madonna as the most successful female artist, Oprah Winfrey as the first woman to own her own talk show and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt as head of the U.N. Human Rights Commission.

These women, she continued, took on personal risk for their humanitarian efforts.

“As we contemplate the importance of life and remember the women who have gone before us, paving the way for our revolution, we recognize the necessity of risk,” Francisco said. “We also recognize that our reputation might be at risk.

“While considering all the risk that has occurred, it is our responsibility to continue to pour into humanitarian efforts and our own community.”

Willie Halbert, second vice president of her chapter of the NAACP, came to visit from Bloomington-Normal, Illinois, for the event.

She encouraged people to learn more about the women of the suffrage movement and use social media to share the information they learned.

Ellis said the event served as a celebration of progress, but also a reminder of what still needs to be done.

A lot of women feel as though they are not treated as equal, she said. Women don’t get paid as much as men and don’t hold as many higher-up positions in companies, she said, especially women of color.