Why Did Paul And Burns Believe In Women's Rights Movement

Paul and Burns planned the first of the Congressional Committee’s events to be a procession in Washington DC that would occur in March 1913 and align with Woodrow Wilson’s presidential inauguration. When Paul first came to Washington, she lived in a boarding house for Quakers that would not only be her home, but the headquarters for the Congressional Committee. Paul used old NAWSA membership information and connections with other suffrage organizations in order to gain support and members for the procession. Racism became a issue for the procession when white participants requested that the march be segregated. However, Paul said that as a Quaker she had always believed in the rights for African Americans, and Paul and NAWSA decided to let
The parade on March 3, 1913 began with a model of the liberty bell followed by social rights activist Inez Milholland dresses in white riding a horse. The parade floats depicted the important moments in women’s rights since the Seneca Falls Convention, with a few floats that expressed gender equality by depicting men working alongside women. Organizations marched together in the parade, including a group of Quaker men. Paul planned the parade to feature Quakers because of their beliefs in gender equality as well as nonviolence. The parade also placed an emphasis on the states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming that had already passed amendments legalizing women’s suffrage (Adams). The crowd surrounding the marchers made it difficult for the women to walk, and the crowd yelled insults at the women. There were also a few cases of physical violence. The police did little to help the women
In these nonviolent protests, women known as “silent sentinels” stood at the gates of the White House holding banners. The idea was that President Wilson could not leave or enter the White House without seeing the suffragists (Adams). Harriot Stanton Blatch was placed in charge of the picketing, but unlike Paul, she believed that violent tactics would be necessary. Paul continued to argue for her Quaker tradition of nonviolence arguing for nonviolent visual rhetoric. On January 10, 1917, twelve women in white dresses stood silently in form of the White House from 10:00 until 5:30. Alice Paul’s Quaker childhood had taught her that silence could demonstrate the force needed in order to create change (Adams). On March 4, Wilson’s second inauguration day, one thousand women marched to the White House and stood in the picket line. The pickets did not only focus on women’s suffrage. When the 1917 Immigration Act was passed, banners read “What about the Filipinos?” (Adams). This showed a commitment to social activism that went beyond just advocating for their own rights. This is a concept that would have been prominent in Alice Paul’s Quaker childhood. In April 1917, Congress declared war and many groups, like NAWSA, gave up their campaigns in order to support the war effort. The NWP continued to picket the president, and challenged the way in which Wilson advocated for Democracy. They claimed that