The League of Women Voters of Sioux City will sponsor a program including a panel discussion on the present and future reality of voting at the Betty Strong Encounter Center this Sunday at 2:00 p.m.
The League’s President Dagna Simmons says last year the league focused on the Hard Won right to vote and the founding of the organization. And one of the leaders of the suffrage movement, Carrie Chapman Catt.
“Who grew up in Charles City, Iowa, was very instrumental in the fight for the ratification of and was also the founder of the League of women Voters. And the for the right to vote for women began 70 years before 1920. So that was a long time coming.
Simmons says the 14th amendment was ratified to give Black men the right to vote after the civil war. But there were still impediments.
Also, Native American were not even considered to be citizens until 1924. Many states continued to deny Native Americans the right to vote until the expansion of the voting rights act in the 1970s.
The League’s Carolyn Goodwin says the forum Sunday deals with black indigenous people of color and the members of the panel reflect that.
“Perla Alarcon-Flory from the community school district board of directors, and the first Hispanic to serve as chairperson, Tricia Etringer of the indigenous Great Plains Indian Society, who is working in indigenous voting and she is a Winnebago enrolled tribal member. Flora Lee, formerly also a school board member, a member of the LWV and also a past president of the NAACP, Karen Mackey who is the director of Human Rights Commission and co-founder of the Siouxland Pride Alliance.”
The forum will be moderated by Morningside University Professor of Political Science Valerie Hennings.
The League of Women Voters of Sioux City is holding the forum Hard Won: Not Done in honor of the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th amendment this Sunday, June 27th at 2:00 at the Betty Strong Encounter Center.
You can attend the event in person or you can watch it online at www.siouxcitylcic.com
or go to www.facebook.com/sclandc.
