3rd State to Ratify | Michigan | Ann Lewis, Artist
Her Flag Artist, Ann Lewis
This work honors the dedication of the suffragettes of Michigan as well as Sojourner Truth, a resident of the state.
Each date represents a year that the women of Michigan challenged the state legislative bodies to bring about a vote for women’s suffrage, finally passing in 1918, only for us to see it would take another 47 years for everyone in the country to truly have the right to vote. The subsequent dates show Native women getting the right to vote in 1924, Chinese in 1943, Japanese 1952, the poll tax revoked in 64 and the Voting Rights Act passing in 1965. The statement ‘Ain’t I a woman and a sister?’ references a token that circulated in New York and likely inspired Sojourner Truth’s speech at the Women’s Rights Convention in 1851. This work is meant to inspire a clear understanding of the reality that while white women won the right to vote in 1920, it took decades afterward for women of color to be granted these same ‘inalienable rights,’ rights that were offered to white men by white men hundreds of years before. It is a call to action to continue to strive for intersectional equity in America.