At VCU, march honors women’s suffrage pioneers

A procession of women marched down Franklin Street yesterday morning to a spot where 100 years ago, the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia was born.

Led by a trio of accordionists and a drummer, two granddaughters of one of the voting-rights group's founders walked with more than 100 cheering women and supporters.

"Recognition of this whole situation and for our grandmother was a long time coming, and there couldn't be two people in the world more pleased than the two of us," Warfield Crenshaw Truesdale said. "I was moved to tears."

The parade gathered at 919 W. Franklin St., where in 1909 about 18 women gathered at Anne Clay Crenshaw's home to form the league, which later became the League of Women Voters of Virginia. The building was renamed the Crenshaw House yesterday; it houses the Virginia Commonwealth University Center for Public Policy.

The Equal Suffrage League lobbied state politicians throughout the 1910s and brought lecturers to town, spoke at union halls and petitioned people throughout the state, said Ray Bonis, a VCU librarian who wrote about the group.

In 1920, the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, giving women the right to vote. That concluded a movement that was started by abolitionists and others in 1848 with the Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, N.Y.

Two earlier groups lobbied for women's suffrage in Virginia, one of which petitioned the General Assembly in 1872. VCU Rector Anne G. "Panny" Rhodes, a former Republican state delegate from Richmond, noted that without the efforts of the suffragists she never would have had the opportunity to be active in state politics.

"It was an important milestone," she said.

Sally Clay Crenshaw Witt, Anne Crenshaw's other granddaughter, said her grandmother raised her family to be liberal and had the support of her husband.

"She was lucky. They were very well-to-do, and she could devote a lot of time to the movement," Witt said.

Noting the range of ages in the crowd, Witt had some advice for young people:

"Don't ever take your right to vote for granted. Keep on voting to make our society stronger for everybody."

Contact Chris I. Young at (804) 649-6754 or .