2020-2021 Honorees

Kumar witnessed first-hand how Latinos lack access to services in California and while attending college, Kumar discovered that technology provided a real opportunity to engage youth in civic projects and voting. Specifically, Kumar incorporated social media to connect young voters to the vital information they needed to stay politically conscious. In 2004, Voto Latino was founded and Kumar became the president and CEO of the non-profit, non-partisan organization that was to increase voter registration in Hispanic and Latino communities. With Kumar as president, Voto Latino has registered over a quarter million voters and increased Latino voter turnout. This year the organization announced they are committed to registering 1 million voters by the 2020 election. Recently, Voto Latino has expanded their platform and now provides resources for young people on topics of immigration, healthcare access, and professional development.

Kumar’s work through Voto Latino has earned her many prestigious awards, including multiple Promax Gold awards. Hispanic Business recognized Kumar as one of the 100 Most Influential Latinos in America. She has also been named one of the 10 Most Influential Women in Washington D.C. by Elle Magazine. Her work has been profiled on HBO’s Celebrity Habla and PBS’s Undergraduates.

Kumar also works as a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, an Aspen Institute Scholar, a Hunt Alternative Fund Prime Mover, and a Council of Foreign Relations Lifetime Member. She serves on the national boards of EMILY’s List, the Latino Leaders Network, and Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

Norton became active in the civil rights and voting rights movements as a college student. She was an organizer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and participated in Mississippi Freedom Summer, a campaign to register the state’s disenfranchised African American citizens to vote, in 1964.

From 1965 to 1970 Norton served as the assistant legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) where she specialized in freedom of speech issues. She famously won a case representing female employees of Newsweek which ended the magazines policy of only hiring male reporters. In 1970 she was appointed head of the New York City Human Rights Commission where she held the nation’s first hearings on discrimination against women. President Carter appointed her the first female chair of the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission (EEOC) in 1977.

Eleanor Holmes Norton was first elected to Congress in 1990, where she has served the past 15 terms as the non-voting delegate, representing citizens of Washington D.C. In Congress, Norton has fought for the voting rights and self-governance of the District of Columbia residents. She serves on the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. Norton has been recognized with numerous awards including more than fifty honorary degrees.

Terry Ao Minnis is currently the Senior Director of Census and Voting Programs for Asian Americans Advancing Justice (AAJC). AAJC is a non-profit organization fighting for civil rights and empowering Asian Americans to create a more just America for all.

In her work defending voting rights, Minnis has written several amicus briefs filed before the U.S. Supreme Court. These cases include; Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder, Arizona v. The InterTribal Council of Arizona, Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One v. Holder, and Crawford v. Marion County Election Board.

Minnis utilizes her talents as a speaker and writer to bring attention to the importance of the U.S. Census and equal access to the ballot box in local and federal elections. She has also written several articles in support of voting rights including “When the Voting Rights Act Became Un-American: the Misguided Vilification of Section 203” published in the Alabama Law Review.

Minnis sat on the U.S. Department of Commerce’s 2010 Census Advisory Committee from 2002 until 2011. Minnis is also the co-chair of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights’ Census Task Force, which is a coalition that works to promote and protect civil and human rights for all people.

Mayo began her career at a time when women’s history was largely ignored by historians. A trailblazer in the women’s history movement, Mayo challenged the status quo and revolutionized the way woman were portrayed in the realm of public history. Mayo’s work and dedication to the women’s history movement is visible throughout her 40 year career with the Smithsonian. Mayo’s exhibit, Parlor to Prison ran for ten years and set the standard for how museums should showcase the historic contributions of women.

During her time at the Smithsonian, Mayo has managed many major exhibitions in women’s history, voting rights, and political history. She has written many publications including her books First Ladies: Political Role and Public Image (1995), The Smithsonian’s Book of First Ladies: Their Lives, Times, and Issues (1996), and Presidential Families (2006).

Mayo is an honorary board member of and contributor to the Turning Point Suffragist Memorial in Occoquan, Virginia. The memorial, set to open in 2020, is located on the grounds of the Occoquan Workhouse, where scores of suffragists (ranging in age from 19 to 73) were imprisoned for their picketing of the White House in support of women’s suffrage.

Burns returned to the U.S. to continue the fight for women’s suffrage. Upon her return she joined the National Women’s Suffrage Association (NAWSA) before forming the more militant, Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage with fellow suffragist Alice Paul.

Burns was a part of the “Silent Sentinels”, a group of suffragists who picketed outside the White House to challenge President Wilson’s failure to support a federal amendment for woman’s suffrage. After months of protest, Burns and fellow sentinels were arrested as political prisoners. The women were tortured and subjected to cruel living conditions during their imprisonment at the Occoquan Workhouse. Burns, along with her suffrage sisters, went on a hunger strike and in response, the prison guards brutally force fed the women. The torture caused permanent damage to Burn’s esophagus. Nevertheless, she carried on with her courageous work for suffrage through a nationwide speaking campaign that highlighted the brutality the suffragists had experienced during their time at Occoquan. The speaking tour garnered support for the suffrage cause and contributed to the successful ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920.

Catt worked tirelessly on a national level to support suffrage. Catt worked with politicians at the state and national level including, Woodrow Wilson who did not support Women’s Suffrage. Catt was a relentless lobbyist and by 1918, Wilson was in support of suffrage which led to the passing of the 19th amendment in 1920.

During her time as a suffrage advocate, Catt helped with the organization of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance (IWSA) in hopes of spreading Democracy around the globe. After the passage of the 19th amendment, Carrie Chapman Catt founded the League of Women Voters just six months before the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified. She gave her talents towards the banishment of child labor and the ideals of world peace. In 1933, Catt worked on behalf of German Jewish refugees and was awarded the American Hebrew Medal for her efforts.

In 1899, members of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) wrote the “Hawaiian Appeal”, asking Congress to give Hawaiian women the right to vote. Later, Dowsett founded the National Women’s Equal Suffrage Association of Hawai’i (WESAH) and led the efforts to enfranchise the women of her island.

In 1918, Congress placed the women’s suffrage issue under the jurisdiction of Hawaii’s territorial legislature. The bill passed the Hawaiian Senate but found opposition in the House. In protest of this decision, Dowsett led 500 women of all ages and “various nationalities” to the House floor with “Votes for Women” banners in hand. Dowsett continued to lead mass demonstrations in support of suffrage throughout 1919.

When the 19th Amendment became part of the U.S. Constitution in August 1920, Hawaiian women became enfranchised along with their mainland sisters. As residents of a U.S. territory, however, their elected representation was limited. It would take another 39 years for Hawai’i to become the 50th state in the Union, and for all residents of Hawai’i to gain full US voting rights.

Duprey is considered one of Puerto Rico’s strongest advocates for women’s suffrage. She was one of the founders of the Puerto Rican Feminist League and utilized her talents as a writer to gain public support for the cause of women’s suffrage. In 1925, Ana Roqué de Duprey and Isabel Aundreu de Aguilar founded the Puerto Rican Association of Suffragist Women. This group successfully lobbied for voting rights for literate women, which was achieved in 1929. Duprey then went on to create the Island Association of Voting Women. Duprey was also a prolific writer who wrote short stories as well as novels. Duprey died in 1933 at the age of 80, one year after women in Puerto Rico won the right to vote.

After a move to Colorado, Ensley became a reporter for the “Women’s Era,” a newsletter that is affiliated with the National Association of Colored Women (NACW). Even though women in Colorado won the right to vote in 1893, suffragists continued to push for a national women’s suffrage amendment. To educate women of color on how to vote and why they should vote, Ensley founded the Colored Women’s Republic Club.

In the summer of 1906, Ensley served as the second vice president of the Colorado State Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs, which organized and mobilized the suffrage movement, while also working towards the state’s goal of farm labor reforms. Ensley died in 1919, just before the ratification of the 19th Amendment. However she left an extraordinary legacy that inspired hundreds of thousands of citizens to understand the importance of their vote and their responsibility to take action in a democratic society.

On Sunday, March 7, 1965 a non-violent voting rights march was scheduled to walk the 54- miles from Selma to Montgomery, the state capitol. The 600 marchers got only as far as the Edmund Pettus Bridge, when state and local lawmen attacked the marchers with billy clubs and tear gas and drove them back into Selma. Foster was one of the marchers and because the brutality of her beating was captured on film, she came to embody the challenges the protesters faced. On March 21, two weeks later, Foster, with two injured knees, walked 50 miles in five days as part of the voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery.

Marie Foster tried to register to vote eight times before she was ultimately successful. Following this experience, she started teaching other African Americans how to pass the literacy tests put in place to bar them from voting. Foster became known as “the mother of the voting rights movement” by local organizers.

Lee believed that achieving the right for women to vote, was an important step for both American and Chinese women. At the age of sixteen, she participated in the 1912 suffrage parade in New York, where she helped lead the parade while on horseback. Lee was a member of the Women’s Political Equality League and in 1915 gave an important speech titled, “China’s Submerged Half” which was covered by the New York Times. In this speech she said:

“The welfare of China and possibly its very existence as an independent nation depends on rendering tardy justice to its womankind. For no nation can ever make real and lasting progress in civilization unless its women are following close to its men if not actually abreast with them.”

Lee’s work contributed to the success of suffrage being passed in New York in 1917. However due to the Chinese Exclusion Act, Lee herself was not allowed to vote that year and it is unknown whether or not she voted in her lifetime.

Minor made a notable impact on the NWSA in 1869 by proposing a legal stratagem for quickly attaining suffrage. She argued simply, that the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution implicitly guaranteed the franchise to women. The association adopted her argument and used it widely.

In October 1872, when Minor was barred from registering to vote in St. Louis, she and her husband sued the voting registrar, The test case, Minor v. Happersett (1874) was brought on appeal by Virginia Minor, herself an officer of the National Woman Suffrage Association, and her husband, Francis Minor, who argued the case before the US Supreme Court. The argument was that Virginia Minor had been denied one of the “privileges and immunities of citizenship” guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. Although the case was lost, it generated much publicity for the cause of woman suffrage. It also demonstrated that state laws needed to be changed to afford women the right to vote.

Shaw was born in England and raised in Michigan. She had a distinguished professional career and was highly educated in a wide variety of fields. In the 1890s Shaw decided to dedicate herself full time to the suffrage cause.

Shaw served first as Vice President, and later as President, of the National American Woman’s Suffrage Association (NAWSA) from 1904-1915. During her lifetime, Shaw was widely respected as a public speaker and effective organizer for the suffrage cause. Shaw was also known for her organizing work on behalf of the temperance movement.

Shaw was a dedicated patriot who served her country during World War I. In 1919, she earned a Distinguished Service Medal as the chair of the Woman’s Committee of the United States Council of National Defense, coordinating women’s contributions to the war effort.

After the war, she traveled to lecture on a peace tour throughout the U.S. and Europe. Sadly, she died suddenly in July of 1919 and unfortunately did not live to see the ratification of the 19th amendment.