Honor Our Mothers – This painting was inspired by four activists who worked for voting rights for all American women. Acrylic on wood panel. Frame built by Joel Simpson.
Zitkala-Sa (also known as Red Bird or Gertrude Simmons Bonnin) was a member of the Yankton Dakota Sioux. She was a violinist, a composer, and an educator who worked for full citizen rights for native peoples.
Ida B. Wells was a journalist, an educator and one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). She worked to end lynching, Jim Crow laws, and for the recognition of women of color among white suffragettes.
Nina Otero-Warren was an education administrator who campaigned for women’s suffrage in her home state of New Mexico and later became the first Latina to run for Congress. She won the Republican primary but lost by a small margin in the general election.
Mabel Lee campaigned for women’s suffrage while attending Barnard College but was ineligible to vote until 1943 when the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed. She was the first woman to receive a PHD from Columbia University. She then headed a Chinese Baptist mission dedicated to assisting Chinese immigrants.