The Women’s Institute at Russell Sage College will mark the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment with Deeds Not Words: Women’s Political Past, Present and Future, a free, multi-event symposium on the centennial of women’s suffrage.

Events begin Aug. 26 with a “Gender and Politics” virtual program from 6 to 7:30 p.m. The discussion will focus on “Election Day 2016” — a short documentary by Linda Moroney filmed in entirety at Susan B. Anthony’s gravesite. The session, moderated by Kathleen McLean of McLean Consulting, will look at where we are four years later, how race and gender bias influence political perceptions and how generational difference affects political behavior. The panel includes Moroney; Samantha Hall-Saladino, executive director of the Fulton County Historical Society; and Melissa Deckman, author of Women and Politics.

Register for the Aug. 26 panel discussion at www.sage.edu/deedsnotwords.

Because Aug. 26 is Women’s Equality Day, a result of 1971 legislation by Bella Abzug commemorating the certification of the 19th amendment, Russell Sage College will light up Bush Memorial Hall on the Troy campus, and the Administration building on the Albany campus, in purple and gold as part of the national Forward Into Light campaign.

Deeds Not Words virtual programming will continue with the following events:

Sept. 17: “Contemporary Struggles in Voting Rights” will examine the issues with access to voting that persist 100 years after the 19th Amendment. The virtual panel discussion with national experts will be tied to Sage Votes, Russell Sage College’s drive for voting participation. Panelists include Nancy Abudu, deputy legal director of voting rights at Southern Poverty Law Center; Nancy Thomas, director of the Institute for Democracy in Higher Education, Tufts University; and Perry Grossman, senior staff attorney in the Voting Rights Project at the New York Civil Liberties Union.

Sept. 24: “Women, Politics and Activism” will feature Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and prominent regional women politicians and activists.

Oct. 8: “Vanguard: How Black Women Have Always Led on Voting Rights— A Lecture by Martha S. Jones” will feature Jones, a legal and cultural historian whose work examines how Black Americans have shaped the story of American democracy. Her new book, Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Fought for Rights for All, will be published in September. Jones is the Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor and Professor of History at The Johns Hopkins University.

Oct. 20: “The Role of Indigenous Peoples in Women’s Suffrage” will feature Sally Roesch Wagner, author of Sisters in Spirit: Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Influence on Early American Feminists — a book documenting the surprisingly unrecognized authority of Native women, who inspired the suffrage movement. She will be joined by Michelle Schenandoah, a member of the Oneida Indian Nation Wolf Clan of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and founder of Rematriation magazine. Professor Gayle Morse of Russell Sage College will moderate.

All programming is free and open to the public. Advance registration is currently available for some of the events at The Women’s Institute at Russell Sage College’s Facebook page at
www.facebook.com/WomensInstituteatRSC. Additional program registrations will be added shortly.

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