The Long Beach Suffrage 100 Cast Their Last Ballot on Women’s Equality Day

The purple, white and gold sashes over white dresses were indicative of the women’s suffrage movement in the 1900s. About 40 sentinels of the Long Beach Suffrage 100 gathered on Aug. 26 on the corner of Ocean Boulevard and Chestnut Avenue dressed in suffrage clothing. 

The Long Beach Suffrage 100, a group of women volunteers on a mission to celebrate and educate on the 19th Amendment hosted a rally on Women’s Equality Day to commemorate the 101 anniversary of women, but not all women, gaining the right to vote in the United States on Aug. 26, 1920.

“I find my vote is precious, and I think it’s important to commemorate all these women that came before us that fought,” said Jane Hansen, a member of the theater circle with Long Beach Suffrage 100.

The sentinels began the event by reading the names of women who fought for voting rights and remembering local women activists, such as civil rights activist Yuri Kochiyama born in San Pedro and Dr. Olive Baker, the first woman obstetrician and gynecologist in Long Beach. 

Before concluding, the sentinels marched to the ballots for one final time to cast their vote as the Long Beach Suffrage 100. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the organization was unable to proceed with their yearlong events – forcing them to permanently shut down the organization. 

The fight isn’t over, said Zoe Nicholson, longtime activist and director of the Long Beach Suffrage 100. She is in the process of making a women’s commission in Long Beach and rallying behind passing the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the Constitution. 

“I’m ready to jump and change and work for the ERA,” she said.

For Nicholson, this has been a 45-year-old fight. In the summer of 1992, she fasted in public in Springfield, Ill., for 36 days on water to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. 

“White women — let’s be clear — white women getting the vote in 1920,” Nicholson elaborated. “That was just the beginning. We are not done. We have a lot of work to do.” 

The women’s suffrage movement was the first activist movement to picket the White House over legislation. Three years after the 19th amendment passed, women’s rights activists Alice Paul and Crystal Eastman introduced the first Equal Rights Amendment to Congress in 1923. Ever since, women’s rights activists have fought to ratify the amendment into the Constitution. The Long Beach Suffrage 100 organization is committed to continuing the fight, even without the organization’s name behind them. 

“All of us want to be part of the U.S. Constitution,” Nicholson said. “We won’t be until the Equal Rights Amendment is passed.”

For two years, the Long Beach Suffrage 100 hosted events, educational programs and organized performances. Spreading the history of the suffrage movement and telling people the importance of the vote. They concluded their years together at 3 p.m. riding off on a sightseeing bus on their way to the historic Bembridge House for some tea.  

“Women passed the baton over decades to get us to 1920 and we are still passing the baton,” Hansen said.