Eighty-eight years ago the United States of America joined 26 other countries, including the Muslim republic of Azerbaijan, in granting women the right to vote. I look back in awe to the women at the Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention in 1848 who dared to demand the right to vote, along with many other rights.
Susan B. Anthony spent 50 years of her life crisscrossing this country by train, horse and buggy, and horse-drawn sleigh. Speaking anywhere and everywhere she could on the “natural rights” of women and rarely spending more than one full day in any one place. When she voted in 1872 she was arrested and charged with voting illegally even though she had registered to vote. The judge would not allow her to speak at her trial, he refused to allow the jury to render an opinion, and he found her guilty.
Alice Paul led the suffragists who picketed the White House starting in 1916. They held up banners that quoted President Wilson's speeches on democracy and asking why he refused to back voting rights for women. They were accused of treason by the pundits of the time. They were beaten by mobs while the police looked on or the women themselves were arrested. They were held in jail for days without being allowed to contact anyone outside. Their friends and lawyers who tried to locate them were lied to by the police and jail officials. They were given months of prison time. Some were beaten by their jailers, some were put in solitary confinement. They went on hunger strikes, and were force fed. When word of their treatment eventually leaked out public opinion changed from derisiveness to outrage at their treatment and admiration for their courage. And in 1920 President Woodrow Wilson, who had fought tooth and nail against it, signed the 19th Amendment into law.
Because of the strength and courage of these women and hundreds of thousands like them I can never take voting rights lightly. No barriers to voter registration, all registered voters must be allowed to vote, and all votes must be counted.

Last night I listened to Michelle Obama the speech on NPR and it truly moved me by her words and her story. This morning I watch the same speech and was disturbed by Fox news video pool coverage. If I had only watched the speech I would have been left with the impression that the If I only attending the speech on television was a bunch of board white people and a few happy black people. How could the democrats let the partisan hacks @ fox control the images seen at their convention.