On Tuesday the 6th of March my class attended the Women Suffrage Movement Symposium that was held on campus of the College of The Bahamas in the Performance Art’s Center. This event was sponsored by ZNS and planned by the chairman of this movement, Mr. Priss Curry, under the theme of “ Commemorating the Past, Reflecting on the Present, Envisioning the Future: 1962 and Beyond”. There were numerous infamous faces such as Mrs. Mable Walker on of the suffrages, Andrew Maynard the son of Georgiana Symonette, Juliet Anderson, the daughter of Mrs. Mable Walker herself and so much more interesting faces.
This event lasted from the sixth of March to the ninth. Its purpose was to commemorate the courageous woman apart of the Women Suffrage in the Bahamas and to celebrate its fiftieth anniversary. It all started more than half a century ago in 1948 where women in the Bahamas sought out equality and demanded the rights to vote. This act leads to a series of compelling and glorious events that has strike interest in Bahamian history. The year of 1959 Doris Johnson lead march to the House of Assembly with a petition urging for the rights of women to vote.
In 1960 during a meeting of between the members of the United Bahamian Party, the rights for women to vote were approved sixty-three (63) to two (2). Finally in 1962 women were educated on how to register to vote, Ruby Ann Cooper was the first women register to vote and from here on women of 21 years and over voted for the first time in the Bahamas, which lead to the United Bahamian Party defeating the Progressive Liberal Party in the election, evident of the amount of women that supported their movement.
The whole event was interesting but what truly caught my interest was the International Woman of Courage Award presented to Mrs. Mable Walker by John Dingleman of the U. S. Embassy. To me it signified how important the achievement Ms. Walker and her team are and that it was recognize and acknowledge worldwide. That right amount the minuscule islands of the Bahamas we have such great national heroes.
Through this countless information I acquired like that Miss Doris Johnson was the first women in Bahamian history to run for a seat in the House of Assembly, though she did not win it was still quite the feat considering women just a while ago were not even able to vote and that she was even giving the privilege to be invited by the Voice of Women a Canadian Organization to travel to 13 European capitals on a peace mission.
During my observation of such brave and bold women its undeniable that woman of today ave become complacent, materialistic and quiet, where they are scared to stand up against the wrongs done against them and are okay without putting up a fighting for the a greater cause as long as they are receiving the little valuable trinkets of today. The time invested in lending my ears to each speaker was not wasted; I took with me valuable lessons and now carry a little bit more of that Bahamian pride and the sense that just like men throughout our history, women also have accomplish some memorable victories.
