Alice Paul

We all have some sort of hero. I do not mean heroes or heroines with super powers even though our heroes have some sort of powers just not the type a comic book hero has. They have everyday extraordinary powers, like the power to change and affect our present-day life. My hero Alice Paul is one example, a female, a determined leader and a suffrage/feminist/political activist with a mission: equality, and suffrage for women.

Alice Paul, who was a leader of the Women’s Suffrage Movement, had done anything and everything possible to give women our earned respect, fair treatment and the right to vote. To accomplish this was not a simple thing, this required every ounce of effort from Alice and her followers. There were plenty bumps in the road that temporarily halted her journey. All her protest speeches had helped her achieve suffrage. And with protesting that women deserved suffrage and equality, came consequences and trouble. She was a liberal, intelligent, and strong-willed woman.

Some of the trouble that came for Alice and her organization, the National Woman’s Party (at the time), included being thrown in jail for “obstructing traffic” during her protest. The judge had sent Alice’s troops to jail. Alice still protested and had brought herself in the same fate. In jail she was disobedient and defiant. She refused to eat for the cause, and she sang songs slaves sang about freedom, in jail with her troops, but when she refused to eat she was force fed raw egg yolk and whites through her nose and mouth, she still fought back. And due to her behavior she was sent to an asylum because the jail warden accused her of being insane. Word got out about the women’s treatment and they were released. Eventually women got their suffrage. Alice saw the Nineteenth Amendment passed in 1918. She died in July 8, 1977 at age 92.

Women were free due to her actions and other women’s as well such as Susan B. Anthony, Lecretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Sojourner Truth. These women gave us women opportunity, respect, equality, and suffrage. Without these women to help us then we would not have our present lives, with our present rights. Equality for women made us a little closer to being a better country. Thank you intelligent women. It makes me even happier to be a young lady.

Alice Paul is my hero because of her determination and success for women’s suffrage, due to her intelligence, independence, and persistence. She was metaphorically, a bird flying through the rain even when all odds were against her and us women. She taught me that if she or other women hadn’t tried then we would not have been able to appreciate the taste of freedom or we may have never even had a voice in maybe anything. Or I would have never learned about how important it is to try when going gets tough. Thank you hero.