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In case you didn\u2019t know, 2020 is the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, granting suffrage to women. Colorado beat the rest of the nation to the bar by granting the same in 1893.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve heard of Susan B. Anthony and Carrie Chapman Catt, national leaders of the suffrage movement, but perhaps lesser known are the women who helped the movement in Colorado. Elizabeth Ensley and Ellis Meredith are at the forefront, remembering that Ensley was a woman of color and the suffragist movement was mostly a fully integrated effort, something highly unusual for the time.<\/p>\n
Lost in the discussion of equality for women is the name Zitalka-Sa (\u201cRed Bird\u201d), a Lakota Sioux born in 1876 on the Yankton Indian Reservation in South Dakota. She wasn\u2019t what you\u2019d call a participating member of any accepted mainstream society groups, not until much later, but she had a heart-wrenching story to tell, one she told with striking imagery and heartfelt expression.<\/p>\n
At the age of 8, she was taken from her single mother by Quaker missionaries and deposited at White\u2019s Manual Labor Institute in Wabash, Indiana. This was the era when well-meaning \u201cdo-gooders\u201d thought the American Indian should be deracinated, giving up their ancient and traditional identities.<\/p>\n
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