Alice Stokes Paul’s Birthday

Alice Stokes Paul’s Birthday. Our chapter namesake was born 138 years ago in Mount Laurel at Paulsdale which is currently a girls leadership center and is open for tours (www.alicepaul.org).  Alice was a main strategist of the campaign for the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, resulting in women’s right to vote. She strategized events including the Woman Suffrage Procession and the Silent Sentinels, part of the successful campaign for the amendment’s passage in 1920. Alice suffered police brutality and other physical abuse for her activism, always responding with nonviolence and courage. She was jailed under terrible conditions in 1917 for participating in a Silent Sentinels protest in front of the White House.  After 1920, Alice spent a half century as leader of the National Woman’s Party, which fought for the Equal Rights Amendment. Alice wrote the ERA after getting several law degrees (at a time when most women did not complete high school) to secure constitutional equality for women. She had great success including women as a group protected against discrimination by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 alongside legal scholar Pauli Murray (who went on to be a founder of NOW).