Comment on Women’s march in DC an echo of the past

By Nancy Benac, The Associated Press WASHINGTON — Thousands of women take to the streets of Washington, demanding a greater voice for women in American political life as a new president takes power. This will happen on Saturday, one day after the inauguration of Donald Trump. This DID happen more than 100 years ago, one day before the inauguration of Woodrow Wilson. Library of Congress via APIn this photo provided by the Library of Congress, taken in 1913, attorney Inez Milholland Boissevain rides astride suffrage parade in Washington as the first of four mounted heralds. So notable was the women’s suffrage parade down Pennsylvania Avenue on March 3, 1913, that Wilson slipped into town almost unnoticed on the eve of his swearing-in, forced to travel back alleys to reach his hotel. “Scarcely a score of persons noticed his automobile as it whizzed through the silent streets, and only a few applauded him as he reached his hotel,” The New York Times reported at the time. Related ArticlesJanuary 17, 2017 Kindergartners march and sing in honor of MLK Jr.’s visit to Montview Boulevard Presbyterian Church January 13, 2017 Trump raises millions to cover inauguration’s steep costs January 14, 2017 Citing backlash, singer Jennifer Holliday pulls out of Trump inauguration concert Meanwhile, more than 5,000 women marched from the Capitol to the steps of the Treasury Department in a parade that featured nine bands, four mounted brigades and two dozen floats. The procession proved so pivotal in the struggle to give women the right to vote that it will be depicted on the back of the new $10 bill scheduled to be issued in 2020 — 100 years after women won the vote with ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution. This year, more than a century later, throngs of woman on Saturday will march a route similar to the suffragists’ in an echo of the past.