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.
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.
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. Women still are seeking a stronger voice in society as a new president is inaugurated who repeatedly demeaned women during his election campaign. The marchers' mission statement pledges: "We will not rest until women have parity and equity at all levels of leadership in society."
