The Fight for the Noblest Democracy: Women's Suffrage in Alabama
From filmmaker, Jenna M. Bedsole. The road for the right for women to vote both nationally and in Alabama has been a long fight; this is an exploration of the history and future of the struggle for women’s suffrage.
More Online Video Focusing on Women's Equality
April 6, 2020
Unstoppable: The Road To Women's Rights
Celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment with Unstoppable: The Road to Women’s Rights. Two young girls visit Seneca Falls, NY and Washington, DC to learn about the women who struggled to gain women's rights and how their inspiration helped us elect more than one hundred women to Congress, making this the most diverse Congress ever elected.
June 25, 2020
Virginia Foster Durr
Virginia Foster Durr was born in 1903 to an affluent family in Birmingham, Alabama. Throughout her life she dedicated herself to the fight for social justice. From works with Eleanor Roosevelt to helping bail out Rosa Parks after her infamous arrest when she refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus.
June 25, 2020
Claudette Colvin
Claudette Colvin was born on September 5th, 1939 in Montgomery, AL. In 1955 at the age of 15, nine months before Rosa Parks, she was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery Bus. Claudette Colvin’s contribution to history was overlooked for years before her decision to remain seated gained the recognition it deserved.
July 1, 2020
Pattie Ruffner Jacobs
Pattie Ruffner Jacobs was a resourceful, passionate Alabama advocate who became most notable for her efforts to gain women's right to vote. She researched extensively to become a tactical legislative lobbyist, steadily becoming one of the suffrage movements most compelling and versatile speakers.
July 14, 2020
Bess Bolden Walcott
Bess Bolden Walcott dedicated the majority of her 100+ years to serving Tuskegee University. Recruited to teach by Booker T. Washington, she also served as librarian and curator of the Washington Carver Museum. But most notably she organized the first black-led chapter of the American Red Cross.
July 22, 2020
Lilly Ledbetter
Lilly Ledbetter was born in 1938 in Jacksonville, AL. In 1998, after working at Goodyear for nineteen years, Ledbetter received an anonymous note revealing that she had been paid thousands less per year than her male counterparts. She has been fighting for fair pay for women ever since.
August 23, 2020
Gwendolyn Patton
Dr. Gwendolyn Patton was active in desegregation, voting rights, anti-war and anti-draft movement as well as a teacher and theorist in the black freedom struggle.
August 12, 2020
Adella Hunt Logan
Adella Hunt Logan was an African American activist, educator and suffragist. She saw universal suffrage as the path to universal education and social equity, organizing and writing on behalf of the right to vote for all.
August 16, 2020
Evelyn Daniel Anderson
Evelyn Daniel Anderson became severely disable at the age of 4 and was unable to stand, walk, or sit. She followed her passion of teaching even though it was illegal for disabled people to be hired to teach in Alabama. Her dedication and effectiveness as teacher inspired the Alabama School Board and state senate to repeal the prohibition in 1953, making her Alabama's first disabled teacher.
August 2, 2020
Zora Neale Hurston
Zora Neale Hurston is celebrated for her most famous book, “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” but did you know this Alabama-born writer was also an influential anthropologist considered to be the first African-American female filmmaker?
August 26, 2020
Amelia Boynton Robinson
Did you know Martin Luther King Jr. was invited to Selma by Amelia Boynton Robinson, who had been organizing locally for justice decades before his arrival in the 1960s? Learn more about this courageous civil rights leader with They Dared!
August 31, 2020
Helen Keller
Helen Keller lost her sight and hearing to an illness at 19 months. As a child, she learned to understand and communicate with the world around her and went on to acquire an excellent education. As an adult, Keller devoted her time to humanitarian pursuits and was an important influence on the treatment of people with disabilities.
PBS SPECIALS
July 5, 2020
Part 1 | The Vote | American Experience
One hundred years after the passage of the 19th Amendment, The Vote tells the dramatic culmination story of the hard-fought campaign waged by American women for the right to vote, a transformative cultural and political movement that resulted in the largest expansion of voting rights in U.S. history.
By One Vote: Woman Suffrage in the South
June 30, 2020
By One Vote: Woman Suffrage in the South
In August 1920 in Nashville, Tennessee legislators cast the deciding vote to ratify the 19th Amendment, thus giving women in the United States the right to vote. Narrated by Rosanne Cash, ``By One Vote: Woman Suffrage in the South`` chronicles events leading up to that turbulent, nail-biting showdown.
July 9, 2020
Unladylike2020: Unsung Women Who Changed America
Illuminating the stories of extraordinary American heroines from the early years of feminism, American Masters — Unladylike2020 is a multimedia series consisting of a one-hour special for broadcast and 26 digital short films featuring courageous, little-known and diverse female trailblazers from the turn of the 20th century.
June 28, 2020
And She Could Be Next (Ep. 1)
And She Could Be Next follows a defiant movement of women of color as they transform politics from the ground up. Filmed during the historic 2018 midterm elections, the series features organizers and candidates (including Rashida Tlaib and Stacey Abrams) as they fight for a truly reflective government, asking whether democracy can be preserved—and made stronger—by those most marginalized.
June 15, 2020
Mae West: Dirty Blonde
Dive into the life and career of groundbreaking writer, performer and subversive star Mae West. Over a career spanning eight decades, she broke boundaries and possessed creative and economic powers unheard of for a female entertainer in the 1930s.
July 5, 2020
Women's Work
Celebrate trailblazing women in a special hour spotlighting outstanding contributions from female athletes, artists, activists, and more who left an indelible mark on the world around us through their thought-provoking objects and accomplishments.
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