This year marks the 100th year anniversary of women’s suffrage across the U.S. and to celebrate, the University of Idaho, along with collective voices, brought the “19th Amendment Exhibit” to Moscow.
To learn more about women’s suffrage and equal exercise of the right to vote in our democracy, the exhibit offers an educational experience for those willing to learn.
Originally planned to take place in Boise, the exhibit moved up to the Palouse.
“Because of COVID-19 and Boise’s different reopening stage, we wanted to share the exhibit with the entire UI community and Moscow community,” Noelle Collins, marketing and communications manager at the College of Law, said.
The exhibit was available for two weeks, last week at the Prichard Art Gallery and currently in the Courtroom at the UI Law School. The exhibit can be viewed until Oct. 16.
“We originally thought we would love to have it here in the law school,” Collins said. “But we really want to make it a community exhibit and make it available to everyone.”
They wanted the exhibit to be in a high traffic area downtown, where people can walk in and to get special attention at the Moscow Farmers Market during the weekend.
Along with the exhibit, the panel was planned by the Women’s Law Caucus and the American Constitution Society.
The panel was at 3:30 p.m. Oct. 14.
Jared Smith, president of the American Constitutional Society, and Reanna Vanacore, president of the Women’s Law Caucus, helped to make this panel a reality.
The American Constitutional Society is its largest, progressive legal organization in the United States, focused on the conversation around the constitution and how to use it in the 21st century.
The Women’s Law Caucus, somewhat of a similar goal to make legal fields more diverse and progressive, their focus is largely to rebuild groups of professionals, expressing women have as much as a right to be in the legal field as men do.
“This being an election year, and being the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, just kind of really hits home,” Vanacore said. “It’s especially important right now for this celebration to not only be a celebration of how far we’ve come, but this be a reminder of the tenacity that women have to fight for their rights.”
Still today, people of color have a hard time voting and even with the 19th Amendment being ratified and written to be facially nondiscriminatory, the implications that come with it is extremely discriminatory in racial context and still on the basis of sex, Vanacore said.
Which makes this exhibit and celebrating ratification of the 19th Amendment important than ever.
The involvement of clubs pulled together an incredible group of scholars, including a justice on the Washington State Supreme Court, an activist with the League of Women Voters and a woman of color in the Idaho State Legislature, Smith said.
“The event is largely going to be a reflection on the last 100 years of the 19th Amendment, some of the history building up to it, how it’s impacted Idaho, specifically, where we come from where we’re going, what still needs to be addressed,” Smith said. “Each of the panelists, between 10 and 15 minutes, will talk about their field of expertise, and what they know about the 19th Amendment.”
Emily Pearce can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @Emily_A_Pearce.