Tennessee continues to commemorate women’s suffrage with this sixth suffrage memorial, honoring women and men from Memphis and Shelby County who fought for American women’s right to vote. The state has a special place in the journey of women’s suffrage as the 36th and last state to ratify the 19th Amendment giving American women the legal right to vote on August 18th, 1920.
Memphis Suffrage Monument features six busts and a 70-foot-long series of 9-foot-tall wall panels representing women marching. Twelve etched glass panels present portraits and biographies of 12 women who played a significant role in the women’s suffrage movement and others whose careers were influenced by the suffragists’ victory.
The famous Tennessee sculptor Alan LeQuire created the six busts for the memorial, the fifth suffrage memorial in the state he had created.
The memorial stands behind the University of Memphis Law School overlooking the Mississippi River. It was dedicated on March 27th, 2022, after five years of work led by the Memphis Suffrage Monument Committee Chair, Paula F. Casey (also the co-founder of TN Woman Suffrage Heritage Trail).
The busts depict:
Ida B. Wells (1862-1931) was a journalist, anti-lynching campaigner, civil rights leader, and suffragist. She started her activism work and Journalism career in Memphis. On July 2021, a standing statue of her was unveiled in the Ida B Wells Plaza in Memphis.
Mary Church Terrell (1863-1954): was born and raised in Memphis and became a prominent suffrage leader and an advocate for racial and gender equality.
Marion Griffin (1879-1957) was the first woman licensed to practice law in Tennessee (1907) and worked for years as a lawyer in Memphis. She was the first woman elected to the Tennessee General Assembly (1923).
Joseph Hanover (1888-1984) was a Memphis attorney, civic leader, suffragist, and humanitarian. He served as the Tennessee House of Representatives floor leader between 1919 and 1921 and worked tirelessly with the suffrage group for the ratification of the 19th Amendment.
Charl Ormond Williams (1885-1969) was a nationally known educator and a prominent equal educator advocate. She led the state ratification efforts and stood by Gov. Roberts when he signed ratification papers on August 24th, 1920.
Lois DeBerry (1945-2013) served in the Tennessee General Assembly from 1972 till she died in 2013, the longest-serving member of the house. She was the first female Speaker Pro Tempore in the Tennessee legislature and the second African-American woman who got elected to the house.
The six women who are honored with etched portraits and bios in Glass are:
Lide Smith Meriwether (1829-1913) was a Woman’s Christian Temperance Union activist, the co-founder and president of the Memphis Equal Rights Association, and the organizer of women suffrage clubs in Tennessee.
Lulu Colyar Reese (1858-1926) was a socially prominent community leader, a suffragist, and a Memphis politician who advocated for better education, free textbooks, and child labor laws. She was among the first two women elected to the Memphis City Board of Education.
Alma H. Law (1875-1947) was the first woman to serve on Shelby County Quarterly Court in 1929, serving until her death in 1947.
Maxine Atkins Smith (1929-2013) was a civil rights legend known as the “Mother of the Civil Rights Movement in Memphis.” She was NAACP Executive Director (1962-1995), leading and organizing activities for desegregation. She also registered large numbers of women to vote.
Minerva J. Johnican (1938-2013) was the first black female elected to Shelby County Quarterly Court and later to the Memphis City Council. She ran for city mayor and to congress and worked tirelessly to cross racial lines.
Frances Grant Loring (1923-2009) was the sixth generation in Memphis. She became a lawyer, community leader, women’s and civil rights activist, and the Association for Women Attorneys’ co-founder.
Dorothy “Happy” Snowden Jones (1937-2017) was a leader for equality and social justice for over 50 years and a philanthropist. The first donor to this Memphis Suffrage Monument and was the primary financial supporter of the state-published memorial The Perfect 36: Tennessee delivers Woman Suffrage.
Below is the list of suffrage memorials in Tennessee:
- Tennessee Woman Suffrage Memorial in Knoxville
- Tennessee Woman Suffrage Monument in Nashville
- Tennessee Triumph Women’s Suffrage Monument in Clarksville
- Sue Shelton White Statue in Jackson
- Burn Memorial in Knoxville
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