Women’s Suffrage Centennial

Suffrage Centennial Grant Awardees

The Barbara Lee Family Foundation is happy to announce the four local organizations selected to receive a $5,000 grant to fund forward-looking community programming around the suffrage centennial.  In 2019, as part of its involvement with the Greater Boston Women’s Vote Centennial, the Barbara Lee Family Foundation sought proposals for projects designed to encourage civic engagement and link the history of the suffrage movement to the urgent social issues of today. Through this grantmaking program, the foundation sought to elevate organizations doing work to create a racially, ethnically, and geographically diverse centennial celebration reflective of the Greater Boston community. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, please note that some of the below programming has been postponed.

The centennial of Women’s Suffrage is not just a commemoration, but a call to action, each of these dynamic projects highlight important lessons from the women’s suffrage movement, including the responsibility of each generation to continue the march for justice.

– Barbara Lee, President and Founder of the Barbara Lee Family Foundation

The chosen projects are:

The Brockton Public Library Foundation:

The Brockton Public Library will present The Vote – A Divided Movement that Brings Us Together, a project investigating how voting rights have expanded over time to include more segments of the population. Brockton Public Library will collaborate with other community groups and public schools to offer engaging activities, panel presentations, book discussion groups, enactments, events, and a Story Walk.

The Josiah Quincy Orchestra Program:

The Josiah Quincy Orchestra, based in Boston’s Chinatown, will engage 10- and 11-year-old students on the history of the suffrage movement and its continuing impact today, including a discussion with City Councilor Michelle Wu about the impact of suffrage on the Asian immigrant population; student presentations on women’s suffrage; and student performances featuring works by Soon Hee Newbold, an Asian-American, female, contemporary youth orchestra composer, at the Massachusetts State House.

The Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts Boston (CWPPP):

In partnership with Massachusetts Women of Color Coalition, CWPPP will hold a 4-part interactive and educational forum. The forum is designed to engage former and current elected women of color, women candidates of color, voting rights advocates, scholars, and activists in order to encourage civic engagement and voting by communities of color from Greater Boston.

The Massachusetts Women’s Political Caucus (MWPC):

MWPC will engage with greater-Boston public high schools to teach students about suffrage and civic engagement. MWPC will work with students to launch voter engagement teams to go into their home communities and register people to vote.