Political Quotes

“Mr. President, let me turn to the fight--the century fight for women's suffrage, the right to vote, the right to be treated equally, the right to be heard. It is a history that is long and interesting, sometimes very colorful. I have had an opportunity these past couple of weeks to be reading a collection of stories about how women in the West worked to really be the vanguards, if you will, on the suffrage movement. You don't necessarily hear them spoken to with great frequency, but, in fairness, it is many of those Western States--it was Wyoming that was the first mover. So reading some of their stories was a good reminder--a good reminder--of the role that many in Alaska have also played. We have been relatively progressive when it comes to women's rights--so progressive that many Alaskan women received equal voting rights with men in 1913. This was 7 years before the 19th Amendment was ratified. Alaska was still a territory and was still going to be a territory for a long time going forward. The sorry and the sad part of that history, though, was that not all Alaskan women were given that right to vote. Alaskan Native women were excluded. They were excluded based on citizenship and civility assessment as well as literacy tests that prevented Alaska Natives--not just the women but some Native men--from voting for several more decades.…”