Tea With Susan B

By John Hickey
West Virginia Secretary of State Betty Ireland presided over a “tea” at West Virginia University at Parkersburg Aug. 24, in celebration of the 85th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment, which guaranteed women the right to vote.

The party was billed as “Tea With Susan B,” and Susan B. (Anthony), the famous suffragist, was there in impersonation, but the ghost of honor was Sojourner Truth, who really did seem to be there in spirit, embodied by Quandora Hornbuckle, who transfixed the room with moving spirituals and testimony in the voice of Sojourner Truth. More than one person in the packed room, including WVUP President Marie Foster Gnage, spoke of a physical thrill on hearing what Dr. Gnage called the “true voice” of Sojourner Truth, the electrifying African-American preacher and suffragist of the nineteenth century who had been born a slave and sold away from her family as a young girl.

“Tea With Susan B” is part of a large-scale effort of Secretary of State Ireland to bring voters into the political process. Her web site wvvotes.com describes a multitude of initiatives of the Secretary of State’s office, including “active registration drives in most of the high schools in the state …, registration drives and education forums held at senior centers,” and a phone number, 866-SOS-VOTE, to coordinate registration drives.

Ireland herself energized the room as she spoke of the struggle of women and African-Americans and young people to gain the right to vote, and of the struggle around the world for people to be true citizens in their own countries. She spoke of meeting Nabeela Abdulla Al-Mulla, the woman who is Kuwait’s ambassador to the U.N., and being struck by the irony that Al-Mulla, as ambassador, has the responsibility of speaking for Kuwait at the U.N. but as a woman does not have the right to vote in Kuwait. Ireland noted that women will have that right in Kuwait in 2007.

Ireland wondered aloud: If you stopped a young woman at random in the halls of WVUP and asked her how long women have had the right to vote, would she be surprised that women have not always had the right to vote? She noted the simplicity of the 19th Amendment, conceived at a “tea” in 1848, but only ratified in 1920 after long struggle: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”

Ireland, the first woman to be elected to a major non-judicial West Virginia state office, urged everyone to exercise their hard-won right to vote. She cited the 14th and 15th Amendments, which established the voting rights of African-Americans; the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which sought to enforce those rights; and the 26th Amendment, which allowed 18-year-olds to vote. Ireland said she favors the renewal of the provisions of the Voting Rights Act which will soon come to a vote in the U.S. Congress, but she affirms that, independent of the Voting Rights Act, voting rights are guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution itself as now amended.

WVUP President Gnage expressed appreciation to Secretary of State Ireland and to Susan B. Anthony (Karen Vuranch) and Sojourner Truth (Quandora Hornbuckle) and to everyone who came, and said she was gratified that the university was able to host such a significant event. She also expressed her appreciation to the university’s food service, AVI, for the elegance of their presentation.