Alice Paul (1885-1977) was a key leader of the US suffrage movement, the National Woman’s Party’s co-founder, and an equal rights activist. She devoted her life to the cause of women’s suffrage and equality, strategically designed many of the suffrage movement’s actions till the passage of the 19th amendment, which would not have happened without her.
Her call box is located on Pennsylvania Ave, where the famous Suffrage March took place in 1913. The March she produced a day before President Wilson’s inauguration.
Her call box is painted in the colors of the suffrage movement, yellow and purple. The back of the call box is painted white and reads: “1920-2020, Centennial of the 19th constitutional amendment, which guarantees and protects a woman’s right to vote.” There is an additional bronze statue of women marching, holding signs on the top of the call box.
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Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910) is most famous for writing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” a poem that became the hymn of the Union during the Civil War. She was also an author, lecturer, abolitionist, and women’s rights activist. Howe co-founded the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) and was one of the initiators of US Mother’s Day.
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Alma Thomas (1891-1978) was an African-American painter and educator who lived and worked in Washington, DC. She was the first graduate of the Howard University Fine Arts program. Her abstract, colorful paintings were unusual at the time, and only years later, she got the recognition she deserved. Her paintings are displayed in many museums and galleries all over the US. A few blocks away from the call box, you can see them in the National Museum of women in the Arts and the White House. Her call box is painted dark blue, and at the back, there is a copy of one of her famous paintings.
Find some of her paintings and artworks on this page
Flora Molton (1908 –1990) was a visually impaired Gospel blues street singer who performed on the streets of Washington, DC, on 7th Street NW and F Street NW and 11th Street NW and F Street NW. In later years she also performed in concerts and music festivals and even went on a music tour in Europe. She sang on the streets till a few months before she died.
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Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley’s (1818-1907) early life as a slave was harsh, she was treated badly, and all the earnings she made as a seamstress were taken to support the family who owned her. She bought her freedom only in her late thirties. She founded a dressmaking business that employed more than a dozen seamstresses and served the elite. Among them was the First Lady, Mary Todd Lincoln, who chose her as her modiste, dresser, and confidante. Her second passion was activism, and she founded the Ladies’ Freedmen and Soldier’s Relief Association, which supported recently freed slaves.
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