that is the we're doing with climate change. put the kid in the back seat. [inaudible conversations] good evening i am the co-founder of politics & prose. . .

she urged him to remember to write, rights for women, into that seminal document. a drawing on a range of sources including letters, speeches, newspaper accounts, photos-drawings, angela highlights the milestones in an historic push for women's voting

rights. her book provides portraits of a number of the leaders of the women's suffrage movement. and places that movement in the context of other major social request and political developments that were unfolding. today, more women than men attend a turnout to vote, but lest anyone think the fight is over, just recall the massive turnout on the mall last january. a reaffirming women's rights and effectively protesting donald trump's election. angela has lots of experience herself, report reporting and telling newsworthy stories amount veteran journalist who after starting with gannett news landed at the "new york times." there she rows from copy editor become the first african-american woman promoted to a senior editor position at the times.

she left to paper two decades ago and has wherein four or edited various publications, including black issues review and has ghost-written a number of books. now, angela will be in conversation here this evening with two other accomplished journalist, carol richards, who is a nouning editor of "usa today," and currently elect tourer at george washington university's school of media and can affairs affairs and goingie, a long-time columnist for the "washington post" and herself is writing a memoir at the moment that is due out a little more than a year from now. so we hope to see her back. so join me in welcoming angela, carolyn and dorothy.

good afternoon, everybody -- or good evening. i'm glad you weathered the rain to get here. [inaudible conversations] >> i hope c-span will jet that out. good everyone, i'm dorothy gilliam and it's a pleasure to be here at politics and prose, and it's very good to welcome all of you. we're excited about angela doddson's new book, remember the ladies, and before i turn it over and ask angela some questions i wanted to take a moment to introduce someone else who was very important in the production of this book. he is -- angela's editor from her book group, asian ingram. would you raise your hand? thank you.

angela, i think like many people i thought i knew something about the suffrage movement until i read your riveting book. can you give five or six key moments in the suffrage movement. >> yes, thought i new about the movement 'until i started to write about it. the key moments are these. that lucretia motte, one of the leaders in me month. always considered the first women's convention of the antislavery movement to be the beginning of the movement. that was in 1938. the other seminal moment would have when women began to start speaking in public -- 1838. i saw somebody shaking their head. the other seminal moment would have been when women started addressing public audiences,

because women weren't supposed to, and women were not even allowed to speak in their churches except nor quaker women. but a free woman of color began speaking out on things like the antislavery movement but also on he education of girls and other public issues around 1831. and she was followed by two white women, angela grimace and sarah grimace who had been born into slave-holding families. a slave-holding family in south carolina. they became quakers and moved to philadelphia and became very active in the antislavery moment. and they had to fight for the right to speak in public. they were roundly criticized, group of ministers wrote in cyclical kind of thing, condemning them for doing so. that was another key moment.

the 184 seneca falls meeting of women, called by quaker women and within a week and a half time they conceived the meeting, called the meeting, publicized the meeting and attracted 300 people there. the next seminal probably was -- period, really, was from about 1850 to 1860, women met annually in conventions. they had not settled on the vote as their key issue so they weren't calling themselves suffrages yet but they met to talk about property rights and custody and divorce and a lot of these women were also simultaneously involved in the temperance movement, which became a women's issue. that was a big deal the next moment is when the split split up after the civil war because some over women want to support the 14th and 15th amendments

giving black men who had been enslaved a right to vote and some of them did not want to work for that unless the women's vote were included and they were told that was not on the table and it was the negroes' hour. some people particularly elizabeth stanton and susan b. anthony did not take well to that and formed an organization just to fight for women and suffrage. another faction stayed with the 14th and 15th amendment issue as well this women's vote. so, the next seminal moment for me is when those two groups get back together 20 years later and finally have some energy to move forward. then there's a period where the states began to get -- more states began to give women the vote, and beginning in 1917, new york state voted for women

suffrage for voting in new york. and then there's some states that follow after that. that's a key period. the final push is ratification, which occurs with the final vote in tennessee, and i devote a chapter just to winning in tennessee. >> i think the thing that struck me the most about this book was the vast expanse of time that the -- remember the ladies letter was written in 1776. almost 150 years later, 150 years later, that women got the vote. 150 years. that's a long time, and from then it's become almost 100 years since hillary clinton ran for president and won the popular vote. and i'll tell you the number of times the women in see suffrage program that angela was talking about -- the number of times they got hope above hope they

were going to get there, and their hopes were dashed. one time after another. there was, okay, the civil war came first. get that. black suffrage before that. i get that, too, then ease other things that disturbed them. they didn't win and they didn't win, and the fact is we didn't win in 2016. even though we won the popular vote. which means that there is more work to do. i just want to point out that another thing in angela's book is the majority of white american women voters voted for trump. so you see this is not -- wasn't easy. is isn't easy and it's not going to be easy. >> just to build on that, there were about 96% of

african-american women who voted for hillary clinton do you think it's possible that women are ever going to get together and vote as tribe so they can really elect 0 woman for president? >> use the same term "tribe." i think they will but it's going to take maybe this administration that's going to be a blessing in disguise. the fact that 53% of white women voted for trump, particularly given the misogynistic campaigning and phrases that went around, grabbing things and whatever, and that 96% of women could still vote for hillary -- black women who voted, could vote for hillary, without concern for her race, particularly, people keep saying, well, some people thought that hillary was a flawed candidate and therefore they couldn't vote for he, and my answer to that is always, and

we have elected 45 flawed men. one of them was an african-american but he was not perfect, either. so, we have to decide as women, when is it going to be important enough for us to do one for the girls? i got to put aside everything else and say, it is more important and many ways more damning our nation has never elected a woman than the fact that they have never e -- had never elect an african-american male. so, if it's ever going to happen, women have to hold together, but one of the lessoffs this book also was that women couldn't do it alone. many, many men appear in this book as having helped the movement at various times. many men attended every conference. frederick doug losses publicized the conference, win to the conference at seneca falls, stood up for the right for women

to vote when no one else did. no one else citied withelizabeth katy stanton and he wrote about it. there are also auld kinds of other abolitionist men who were involved. men introduced the first legislation, the first versions of the women's right amendment into the constitution. men had to ratify it. there will no women who x-except a few states, territories wyoming, by the time the suffrage vote came around new york women have been able to vote and a few more states but women were totally dependent on male helpers as well throughout most of this movement. in the early days they didn't even want to run their own meetings because they had never run meetings. no one had ever presided over anything and didn't feel they knew how. they had never addressed a meeting. one woman at one of the ohio conventions in 1850, 1851 goes on i could never speak in front of an audience and never attend

tide meeting and then addresses the audience for an hour very eloquently. we have learn that there has to be some sort of coalition but women at some point have to stand up and decide we're a tribe because we're all women. >> well, was also interested in the way the women related to president woodrow wilson. they really worked him, and they worked him in an upward manner. can you talk about that, please? >> woodrow wilson was on record as being opposed to women's suffrage, and was on record as having said very, very horrible things about his students and what a waste of time it was to educate women, that kind of thing. so, alice paul and a few of her friends organized the march before wilson's gnawing -- gnawing -- -- inaugural -- the day before.

their whole campaign was to work on him specifically to get him to turn around and support women's suffrage. after a while they began picketing him and being at the white house every single day, and that in turn led to their arrest. after world war i started there was less tolerance for their picketing. and they were arrested, some of them were rearrested. they wenting on hunger strikes and were for-fed. they were let negotiating arrested again. that went on for a couple of years. but the whole impetus was to work woodrow wilson, the other part of the movement were playing the good girls kind of routine, and were -- carrie chap chapman were meeting with him and talking to him and trying to bring him around and led efforts

in world world war i to do womes work and they finally turned him around. >> he was stinker. woodrow wilson was not good for african-americans and he wasn't good for women. >> definite live wasn't -- >> finally came around after this terrible publicity of the women being force-fed in jail, that the treatment was just appalling and i think he came around because he had to come around help. he dead finally come around but i'm no fan. >> i can understand why you want be a fan and why i wouldn't be a fan. think the way the women handledded, just the constancy with which they kept bombarding the white house, the picketing and because, of course, during wartime they got so much criticism from so many americans who said, white americans

saying, you know, you're anti -- your interrupting the war. and they were so persistent i think that's a great blessing. >> they learn that from the british women. the british women had been much more militant in their movement and alice paul had spent time in britain, not illinois studying but actually went to jail with them and marched with them. and carrie chapman went to on verve the british methods. they didn't think they would work in the out about they applied some principles. >> they had marches not just private meetings in parlors. they decided to organize serious parades of women, and you have all seen pictures of the women in white mark down fifth avenue and that was a turning point, don't you think? >> yeah. it was marked turning point when women started occupying outdoor spaces. no one was used to women being outdoors, making noise, marching

up and down the street. they'd seen male parades and dissociety, military paraded or whatever, but just the sight of the women and the fact that women would not be silent anymore and would not be unseen, i guess, was a big deal. very big deal. >> i think one of the things that struck me about your book, it's the first book i have seen on suffrage, and i am not a expert on this, but that has really talked about the intersectionallity between african-american history and american history. it did it in the way it talked about how many of the women were abolitionists before they became suffragists and i think that's an important departure could you comment on that? >> i think it is; i tell people i didn't set out to write a black book about suffrage and

didn't set out to write a book about white women suffrage. set out to write a book about the suffrage. no and whatever i found, and -- suffrage movement and whatever i found and early on i found there were black characters in here that none of us were really all that aware of. wasn't that awater of a lot of women. but they interacted in ways that we don't think about. the abolition movement is the most important that nearly all of the women who started the women's movement were abolitionists, and they were on a first-name basis with people like frederick douglass, and they met with him and they entertained them in anywhere homes and all that sort of stuff. lucretia motte, after harv about henry box brown, the man who had himself shipped in a box to escape slave rhythm one of the first places they bring him is to elizabeth -- to lucretia mott's house so they can see him

because they knew she would get a kick out of his story. not only were most of these early women abolitionists, they were among the most radical abolitionists in the country. they started a second movement where they were not even use a product that was known to have been made with slave labor. think about it. this takes a lot of trouble. they had stores like we have the whole foods where you can just go buy the free goods and they tall it the free produce movement. they didn't wear cotton. they didn't trade in cotton. they didn't have sugar during this period, might not have molasses or rice or anything else you can think of that came from the hands of somebody enslaved in south. one of thewoman who was an organizer at seneca falls, he family ran one of these stores. that was interesting to me. and at the same time almost all

of them were -- of the first women who organized seneca falls their homes were known stations on the underground railroad, and all through this literature about the women's suffrage movement, every now and then up pops a letter from somebody describing whoever they were hiding lawould. susan b. anthony talks about outfitting a family to take them to canada. martha write, one of the organizers, lucretia molt's sister, talks about having hidden someone in her kitchen overnight and then talking to them. elizabeth katy stanton talks about meeting someone in her uncle's attic, and he took the young girls in the family to meese this young black woman they were hiding to take to canada the next morning. so, it's a big thing in their lives and they're not ordinary women. they didn't give lip service to abolition. they lived it. and the fact that they started the women's movement is probably no accident.

more a fact they were reformers to begin with, the quaker women were allowed to speak in their churches and used to being treated as equal. that thought they should have their own rights, too and should start speaking what they believed. >> angela, they also -- if they felt they had to they would kick black people under the bus. and keep moving on with the suffrage movement. >> that happened toward the end of the movement. one people remember if they know anything about the black women's -- alice paul asked black women to march at the end of the parade, including women in washington, dc, the sorority just formed two or three weeks before, marched at the back. ida bewells barnett presented she would good along with this and then hid in the crowd and

when her state delegation passed by she marched right out and kept walking. then the discouraged black women from going to convince in atlanta, time they were courting white participant -- white southern participation, white women in the south, had not formed their own organizations and had not been particularly active and this is well up to about 1900. so, they were trying to get southern women into the followed and were prayed the presence of black women would offend the white women and they asked frederick douglass who had always had place of honor at their convention is, not come to atlanta because the sight of this big blackmon on the dyas dais with white woman would not have been over well and probably not. they called on susan b. anthony on her ability to cast black women aside to court the southern vote, and other women

did, too. >> i believe it says in the book that one of the reasons people who were abolitionists became suffragists us because they realized if women couldn't vote, they couldn't get in and pass legislation for -- to free the slaves. >> yeah. i was interested in how industry banded together against the suffrage movement, and that was -- we still see that in politics today. could you comment on that. >> particularly the liquor industry, fought against women, and were -- >> why? >> because they feared that women, if they've got to the vote, would vote like a tribe and would vote for prohibition, and other things that weren't good for industry, like child labor laws and better salaries for women. even companies like -- the railroad lobbies, whoever had

big business lobbies at the time fought tooth and nail and particularly the liquor, and prohibition had not been passed and it was actually the anti-salon -- antisaloon leagues that got it done. >> we'll get questions from the audience in a couple of minutes. and i'll ask you to come to the mic on my left and so that c-span is shooting this so they can see your faces and can capture your riveting words. i guess my last question was, looking at where we are today -- and i think carol's questions have really underscored a lot of that. you said you don't think that we could elect a woman for president now, but things might

change. what would have to change within the female population in your view, for that to happen? >> i don't know if i said that. a part of it is we have to start thinking at women and set aside some other concerns if they're not that important and we have to have the right today at the right time. we also have to raise a heck of a lot of money and people have get to behind whoever that is. >> i think the candidate is the big one, big issue. hillary was -- had the experience, had the publicity, had the -- i want to know -- spiritual sense of americana that made her a good candidate. right now i don't think the democrats have anybody in line, male or female, who sound like a

good candidate run against trump. you can't beat somebody with nobody. you need great women to come forward. we have great women in congress and good governors but i haven't seen anybody coming forth. have you? >> no. since we're journalists, very interesting article' yesterday's "washington post," which they referenced a new study which the media was really taken to task for the way they covered the election, and i thought it was a very good article because in many ways, they suggested that trump had been given a free ride, and that the media was equivocating and basically saying that the flaws in hillary

equal the flaws in trump, and the article went on -- actually was a columnist -- the article win on to say that to compare those two things was particularly out of line, and asking that journalists start really looking again at how it was -- how they covered the election. we're getting past the suffrage movement, aren't we. >> just one thing. margaret sullivan's column, media columnist in the post who is awfully go examiner her point was that for years journalists said you have to be fair in every senior. have to say something about a every. there was one something bad about hillary the e-mails and a million of things bad about trump and every time you had to write about trump, you had to throw in the e-mails to make the whole e-mail thing sound like this enormous thing and making trumps things, which changed daily, seem abusing.

it was big journalistic problem, i agree. >> i think we need to look at that as journalists. >> we do. >> so if anyone in the audience wishes to come forward, please do so, and angela will be happy to answer your question. >> i am from the caribbean, and obviously in the caribbean, i was lucky to grow up around very strong and dominant women. extraordinary strong and dominant women. but we obviously have all of the problems that exist here. these are two questions the first question is, i'm from the caribbean, from the colonized caribbean, free french -- in st. martin. speak into the microphone if you going to put a list together, you know, can. -- if you going to put a list

together, man, woman, man, woman, start kind of like that, you figure out who you vote for. and in europe obviously one o the big problems you all have not referenced here is 100 years after -- women in america still are very lowly represented in, for example, political things and even in businesses, et cetera, et cetera. so, would you believe that would be a good idea for something like in france, where you got a 50-50, there are minimum levels, you have to -- women have to come in because the history, if you don't do it, 10 or 15% will goal voted in. would you be in fair of that -- >> where women would have to be 50% of the congress or something like that? >> yes. so because 50% of the votes are women, don't see it as wrong-headed.

the second question would be, relating to abigail adams, remember the ladies. we know that -- had wrote the vindication of women, i remember that from when i was in university, but could you talk about that and help me -- did this influence abigail? and were there other women doing these type of ideas at that time that had influence on -- because this was before the -- >> i don't know if she read the vindication of women. but i know that abigail adams was very well read for her time. she did not have a formal education so much but she was allowed to read her family's library, and she did, and she was informally tutored at home. so for her time she was an extremely well-educated woman.

she made that remark as he was going to second continental congress, not for the constitution. and as it turn out the second continental congress did not deal with women's rights at owl or did not specifically draw up laws as she thought they would at that time. so it was just kind of a loose confederation at that point. some she probably also according to historians did not have women's suffrage in mind. wasn't the vote so much as you have to remember women had no rights at all and they couldn't divorce, they couldn't own their own property, they couldn't have control oover the custody of their own children, women did not exist as an belt aside from their husbands if day were married. so she was speaking nor those kind of thing, she happened they would write into whatever they wrote at that point, and they didn't want to amend the constitution later either. so new jersey did give women the right to vote initially in 1776

and took it back around 1807. >> second question. >> i am not familiar with the 50-50 legislative principle so i would need to think but it some more. >> i would, too. i didn't answer that but never thought of that concept but it seems something to explore. don't know if i would ever pass in the senate. >> i think for he 19th 19th amendment to pass each of the states hatt had to adopt it individually and i think today august 18th, 1920, was they day it did finally pass. what kind of advocacy the suffrages had to do with the states to encourage them to pass the 19 until amendment. >> actually two paths to getting women's suffrage for most of the 1800s and well into the 1900s, that states could pass a referendum to have women vote in their state, and a lot of the

energy from the early suffragists what spend in trying to get this battles won. somewhere after the 15th 15th amendment was passed, there was an argument that it also covered women somehow. because they were citizens and they were -- >> they weren't denied. >> the weren't denied the right to vote. so some women went around testing it, and trying to get the vote that way. that didn't work. but the effort for state referendums continued even up to when the 19th amendment was passed. to pass the 19th amendment a certain number of states had to ratify and tennessee was the last one they needed to qualify. >> on vacation in new hampshire, luckily. heard just recently about some of the local efforts to get some

of the very, very powerful women in new hampshire into office in the last couple of years, and i worry a little bit about the egg friday in the presidential basket. so much work to be done not just for women but for men also. of the politics that some of us might subscribe to, but to get women in at the local and state levels, at the very local jurisdictional to state levels. we saw -- the importance of women in the health vote this summer, and so i just wanted to know where you fit this dimension in. >> i think women have to start getting into the pipeline and local officers are the way to go. unless they're in a pipeline, they're becoming legislators and governors in their own states and senators anywhere the own

states. >> who puts them in the pipeline. >> well, they have to come forward themselves but people have to raise money and vote for them. we all have to go out and vote for them. >> have some friends in the audience who have been going to local meetings of the local district, in this case democrat party and the people in charge are stunned because suddenly a meeting that used to attract 12 people had 100 minimum women in it. so if this keeps up the pipeline will fill up but you can't just try it once and then get discouraged. >> has to be held up also in a very, very strategic way. appreciate your discussion of strategy and all of this so that's what prompted me to raise this question. >> thank you. >> this book is a real good indicator of the kind of strategies we need. we have to review where we have been and what they did to get this passed. >> thank you so much. angla. i've been reading this book and

i remember your editing from black issues book review. thank you very much for editing that. i'm roon and a luck teacher at -- you mentioned how forward british women were in terms of abolition during the time they were fighting for the vote, the civil war was happening like in 1866. you mentioned emine and her daughter was one of the few women to actually respond to the first wife of marcus garvey, amy ashwood garvey, when in the last year of her police officer she was begging for different people to publish her to, story. i also really appreciate angela what you mentioned about francis harper, because that very important debate is still so

relevant, it's very relevant to phyllis schlafly's decision to give we the e.r.a. think there's a big analogy between that and francis harper's very public disagreement with elizabeth katy stanton in the 1886 convention. i thing angela describes it best in her book. that's what i was going to ask. thank you. >> he's talking about frances harper who had been a free woman, poet and an abolitionist lecturer, and -- african-american. after the civil war there's a meeting where the old -- well, during the civil war, all of these women suffrage groups and whatever stopped meeting so there's a meeting afterwards where the women and the men get together, maybe this couple meetings really -- and she stood up at one of them and said, basically that as much as she wanted to vote for herself that

black men should have the vote and basically that white women needed to get over it at that point. that's out in how i say it in the book. it's much more eloquent, trust me. >> good evening. i'm a novelist as well and a quick statement followed bay question. actually happened to think that women are the superior race. i do. i think they're smarter, they're more courageous, they're less will fogging to fight, more willing to -- less willing to fight and more willing to negotiate. would advocate the senate was made up 50% women and 50% men so each state has to send one of each. here's the question i ask of the panel. seems like the last election was more a referendum on people being tired and disenfranchised of national government and so a guy from the business community was elected. it would be interesting for women because we have a tremendous amount of really great women who are heads of

companies and from corporations, would it be interesting to explore having a great ceo run for the presidency? >> yes, think -- i think -- >> of course i meant female ceo. >> i think that could be interesting. maybe that would interest people or somehow capture their imagination. but i'm not sure that the next -- the first woman president is going to come out of business. >> i think the first woman president may come out of the u.s. senate. christine gillibrand. >> kamala harris. >> right. and whatter heir h name from massachusetts -- warren. >> elizabeth warren. >> pocahontas as trump called her. snares good women there but i would really hope that one of the lessons we have now is you need somebody who does understand government to be running -- to be in charge because a person who doesn't know and isn't even interested in the details of legislation,

which is what we have now, is not going to get those things done. so i would vote for somebody to come up through local politics and it might be a republican, might be a democrat or who knows them parties may shalter the way things are going and we may have some new format, but you have to -- i think you have to pay your dues first. >> it's interesting that women stood up on the health care bill and blocked it. maybe we're almost there. >> they had some help. >> hi. you said at the beginning you thought you knew the history of sufferrage before you started dig interesting the research. i'm actually very curious, what most surprised you in you research. what did you find you didn't expect to find. >> i think i was most surprised at the role men played. and i was surprises the fact they were all abolitionists. that was knew to -- that was new

to me and i didn't and i thought i would write about a band of white women running around in white dresses, parading. i'm glad the story was deeper than that and i would have been have with a book that was predominantly that. i found that wasn't the story. >> my name is audrey sheperd and i just kind of lived this subject avocationally and i was the president of sewell belmont house which is now at historic site and if you haven't been there, you should go. it's now a national park service site. >> one of headquarters? >> where alice paul went in 1929 and where she wrote the equal rights amendment in 1932. >> okay. >> after suffrage but they were there to take advantage of being

next door to the capitol. >> yes. >> i think your panel is great and having a really good turnout is wonderful. i want to make two other quick comments. one is that there is a project at the wilson center, women in public service project, that is trying by 2050 to have 50% men, 50% women in governments worldwide, so i recommend that to you. and the comment i would make -- and i'd like your comments on it -- is that -- i was in the clinton administration and so forth. my observation about hillary clinton, who i think the world of, was that by definition the first woman nominee for president in the democratic party of, of a maple part, their

party, would need to have so much credibility, have so much background in -- be a first lady and all because it took so much credibility that by definition she was really banged up and bruised and all that. wonder if you think that, too. >> well, i think it's with everything else, have to be stronger, wider, faster, smarter, whatever, in -- >> to be considered half as equal. it's going to have to be super woman but even if she is not, women have to band together and say, well, you know, can do this. >> thank you. >> i think that the idea of having a woman that is smarter, faster, the high heel thing, holiday -- how do you think coming to women's suffrage, have

egg in next step be women's representation in government and the best approach is to have women -- i mean obviously it's going to be a bit of both but have women change and have to complain said completely as individuals or have there be the idea of 50-50, gender quotas and you said that you're not sure if that would ever be possible in this nation. i was wondering why -- how we can't see steps of gains womens sufferrage and gaining women's representation. >> i'm not sure i understand the question. >> i think she is saying why can't it be 50 -50? that's sort of -- >> having the knowledge of studying the coming to women's suffrage movement, what somehow proclaims that women's representation of women is different and less successful. >> say one thing.

it's in the back of angela's book, list of each state's female elected people, and you will notice that this number has grown over the years. it was pulling teeth to get the first female elected to the senate, and the first couple of people who were elected to congress were actually just filling out thunder husband residents seats because they became widows. so a long row to hoe just to get to where we are now, at least a respectable number of women in congress and some of 0 them are pretty darn terrific. so, sure, it would be great to aim for 50-50 maybe. greater proportion, who knows. but this stuff doesn't happen overnight. >> i don't think it's a bad goal at all. >> i think we have to recognize that 53%, 54% of white women voted for donald trump, who was being -- who was very clearly --

>> your mic is on. >> 53-54% of women, white women, voted for donald trump who -- did not vet for hillary, and who was very obviously sexist and racist and a groper and -- things that he didn't try to hide. so, i think we're also talking about some consciousness raising among women. those women who perhaps vote the way their husbands vote. i know -- i'm not trying to do an analysis of the voting -- the white voting population and there are other reasons, i think serious reasons that many people did vote for trump, who thought, i think evangelicals kind of were a big part of that. but how do we go about, i think, raising the consciousness of people? how can we make -- some of the

basic issues are women's feelings of not sufficiently high self-esteem, not feeling they can do things? they're really basic things, i think, that have to also be addressed. is that to your point? >> let me just add one point. the suffrages assumed and the men who were voting against them, assumed that they would vote as a bloc and they would vote in a man that's right would clean up politics and that would protect children and women and get rid of liquor and all kinds of horrible things and society would be perfect because women had the vote. as i turned out they did not vote as a bloc at all and tended to vote more like their husbands and then men began do realize they war vote like them, their women would vote like them so we had a long ways to go where people just haven't been voting in their own interests. so, we have to think about that. what is our interest? we're not all alike, north all the same religion, but there is

a core of things that we as women kind of need together to do? >> it can't be men who meet those needs and it can be women who don't. so this isn't a call for us to just vote for women. >> does that answer -- >> yes, thank you. >> thank you. what great way to spend august 18th. 97 years later. thank you so much for doing this. i come from a long line of outspoken quaker women so i hope that i would be interested in this even if i hadn't had that legacy. a couple thing is want to comment on and then a question. i lead an organization that -- whose goal is gender parity in our lifetimes, however we define our lifetimes, or however that turns out, and my -- one of my big particular interests in sufferrage and in a number of other social movements of the

last century, title ix, voting rights act, the americans with disabilities ability, they all involve changing rules and system us, not changing individuals. so, we didn't simply encourage women to vote or try harder or tell them to be more likeable or wear pearls or be less shrill, we realized there's a system that is actually a barrier to women voting. similarly, somebody mentioned earlier, the fact that different countries have different rules and norms and in fact maybe of you probably know the u.s. ranks behind 100 countries in women's representation, 100 countries in women's recommendation he we are a leader exporter of democracy, allegedly. and those countries, the women are the same. they're actually -- they don't have training programs in those countries. they don't spend money on elections but have different rules. gender quotas, over hundred country. different voting systems little different legislate it norms.

take that ans an inspiration we can pivot to this rules and make progress towards aparty. we have to embrace the system changes because it's not happening that's the best and brightest guess elect it. we seek who is in congress right now that's not happening. the thing -- betting off my high horse, the thing i really have been struggling with is identity politics. i was at a din party and my dear friend said, the thing that's rulen the democratic party are identity politic. we could just forget the identity politicked it would be smooth sailing mishusband had to leave the table because my response was so angry. >> ill know that feeling. >> i said, how ridiculous, we all have identities and all want to be repped but we're all equal in that opportunity and the obligation of rules and systems to allow to us all have representation.

so, i feel like it's particularly poignant this week in america to think about how we relegate certain identities to being ones that are problem identities, whereas the norm are the identities that aren't white or people of color or people of color and not women and i feel like we have to embrace the fact that identities exist and we need to do everything we can to give those identities voice and not to disparage them or make it seem like wire ruining our opportunity to have power in society. >> i think you have to live your identity and you have to some extent vote your identity, whether it's as a black woman or as quaker woman or whatever it is your primary association is, but there are times when we also have to figure out whether our collective identities can do something together. that done mean that our aims are at odds at all.

you may be -- you may have the same social agenda i do, even though we don't look anything eye like and don't have the save religion. i happen foe catholic but we have a lot of the same values because of that. identity is not our problem. >> but to many people identity is a problem and part of that is because they have never really accepted the identity of african-americans, male or female, as -- it's woven into the fabric of american life and that needs to be attacked so we're not simply talking -- we're just not stealing phrases but trying to get to the bottom of some of the real issues. >> we have to be able to say, this is my identity but not my only concern. i think we can get past that. >> thank you so much. >> thank you. >> i think we have a gentleman

behind you. >> i'm carl and i want to address the sentiment of the previous speaker about what strategies, ideas, can come forward to elect the next -- the first woman president? i think the supreme court, which hasn't been brought up, has to be really looked at and all the wonderful examples in northern europe and in central africa where 33 to 40% of women are part of the legislatures. affirmative action unfortunately was limited before it really had its chance to work its process to correct from the long history, so i don't think quotas unfortunately in any american system legally will work. look at what mr. sessions is doing now from reversing the step. so, i encourage thinking out of the box and have to really think about the most tremendous, creative move in america,

supreme court, was when two opposing people who were against -- voted for california's proposition to ban same-sex marriage came forward, totally reversed it, almost in sports analogy, came forward with a curve ball and they, not on what is right, should be for these people but on the civil rights issue with a really creative coupe so any idea that the idea that hillary and bill had in the '70s of co-presidencies or splitting a term, four years and taking the vice president that may be the gateway in? anything that that might start a dialogue that way might bring a fresh idea. >> i think we have to be open and willing to do a lot of things.

don't think that it is sustainable that women stay at the bottom and that women not be represented. so, something has to change and if we have to try some unusual ideas, then maybe we will. >> we have time for one more question and a gentleman has the floor. >> thank you. to address one other person's question there is an organization called emerge maryland, and similar programs across the country that specifically are engaged in working on training women, particularfully democratic party, on winning a local office and state and federal offices mitchell question is, your research -- can you talk about you rear search and what you found out in terms of henry ward beecher and maybe the irony in that he was the first president of the american women's suffrage association? >> yes. henry ward beecher is featured in the book, there's a

photograph of him in the book. he had been active in the movement for some time when he was elected as president of the american women's suffrage association, the splinter group that decide it would support the 14th and a 15th amendment. he later became ensconced in a little bit of a scandal but he also connected to a lot of other people in the book. >> thank you. i just want to take a minute to acknowledge angela's husband, michael. is he in the house? >> yes. >> michael is a -- [applause] >> michael is a longtime philadelphia editor, -- for the daily news,; journalists are always correct, right? >> he is the author of "obama's

legacy, what be accomplish it as president, which came came out t year. >> s' hopefully being cared here at politics and prose. on behalf of angela and carol, we again want to thank you for your participation. thank you for your presence. and we hope that you will enjoy raiding the book and that you will learn as much from it as i did. what about you, carol? >> i learned a lot from and it it's a wonderful source. all the dates -- just want to get yourself all fired up, look at the dateline about how long it took to get each of these accomplishments. >> i just want to thank everybody for coming mitchell cousins, my friends, my former colleagues, my former landlord. people like that. but what i want from this book is to be a conversation starter about these things that we have talked about, and this is probably the best dialogue i've

been in so far. so i really want to thank people in washington, you're on your toes. [applause] >> thank you all. i hope this discussion has inspired you to go to the chokeout desk and buy angela's book. she'll be up here signing. the staff would appreciated if you fold up the chairs and lean them against something solid. good night. [inaudible discussion] [inaudible conversations] >> here's a look at some upcoming book fairs and festivals happening around the country:

>> shell by steele you moment recent book called "shame." where did that title come from? >> well, i wrestled with the