On the last day of Women's History Month, we honor Anna Murray Douglass, born in 1813 in Maryland to freed parents. At 17, she moved to Baltimore, working as a laundress and participating in the East Baltimore Improvement Society. Around 1838, she helped Frederick Bailey escape slavery by providing funds, a sailor’s uniform, and a borrowed freedman’s protection certificate. After his escape to New York City, they married, took the name Douglass, and started a family. Anna harbored Frederick as a fugitive until his freedom was bought in 1847. While Frederick traveled to give abolitionist speeches, Anna managed the household and worked as a laundress and shoe mender. Frederick Douglass once wrote of her, “she was the post in the centre of my house”. In Rochester, she also supported the Underground Railroad and the Rochester Ladies’ Antislavery Society. Though married to the most photographed man of the 19th century and facing public scrutiny, including rumors about her relationship and judgements about her lack of literacy, Anna valued and maintained her privacy. Though she never left a personal account of her life, her legacy is one of bravery and determination. She risked her own freedom to help others gain theirs, and the domestic foundation she built for her family as a Black woman was a radical transformation from the past. (fb)

Susan B. Anthony is most known for her pivotal role in the Women’s Suffrage Movement. As a Quaker who believed that everyone was equal before God, she was also an advocate for race and gender integration in schools, workplace rights for women teachers, the abolition of slavery, and universal suffrage. As a member of the Women’s Rights Movement, which itself pushed from many angles, Anthony spoke at countless meetings, led organizations, collected signatures for petitions, and lobbied the state legislature. She was even arrested for voting illegally. Though she didn’t pay her fine, the judge ended her chance to an appeal by not sentencing her to prison time. An appeal would have been an opportunity to bring the case to the Supreme Court, where the rights of women based on the 14th and 15th Amendments could have been tested. Although it never went up to the Supreme Court, her trial was a national discussion and brought more attention to the issue, and she urged other women to register to vote. She also helped create the International Council of Women and served as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, which she retired from in 1900. In 1920, the 19th Amendment was ratified, granting women the right to vote. Anthony is one of many whose persistent and strategic actions pushed the legal rights of women forward. (fb)