October 7

The car’s clock read 2:54 AM when I pulled out of the driveway. I wanted to make Belmont-Paul Woman’s Equality NMon when it opened at 10 AM. I cannot say why I missed this park during my September visit to Washington, D.C., but I did. The monument consists of a large residential house and associated yard, sitting across the street from the U.S. Capitol. Since I was approaching the Capital Beltway by 9 AM I decided to stop at the Nature Center for Rock Creek Park. When I had stopped there in September the various buildings and VCs were closed. My plan was to get the Passport Cancellation Stamp and lapel pin, peruse the Nature Center, then go to Belmont-Paul. When I walked into the lobby there was a ranger and a staff associate behind the front counter. As I presented the ranger with my Quest postcard, she said, “You”. It happens she has seen me on Facebook pages of some of the parks previously visited this year. The museum at the Center has a coyote. I asked her about coyotes being in the park. Decades ago when I lived in the area the word was that this species had been pushed out of the park areas. She replied that about a decade ago they showed up, and now a couple groups live near the park’s golf course. Yes, the NPS has a golf course. Their main target are the turkeys which inhabit that neck of the woods. It is also quiet in the evening since golfers become absent once the sun goes down.

The quickest way to get to Belmont-Paul was to take Rock Creek Parkway down to the Kennedy Center, which involved taking the same road I had in September. Still plenty of joggers up and down the paths along the creek. Once past the Kennedy Center and the Lincoln Memorial, just a straight drive down Independence Ave to get to the east side of the U.S. Capitol and the Belmont-Paul house. A big sign outside said the building was open. This park had been closed for quite some time as renovations were made. But now the first floor is open, with or without a ranger-guided tour. When I handed a postcard to the ranger at the front desk, he said a copy was over at the main office in the Old Post Office building. He figured a ranger I had given a card to in September at one of the National Mall monuments/memorials had brought it back to the main NPS office and put it on the bulletin board.

There are four rooms on the first floor of the building. Each tells a different part of the story of woman suffrage and the 19th Amendment to the Constitution. Alice Paul looms large in the overall story, leading the charge to get the 19th Amendment passed. She founded the NWP (National Woman’s Party) in 1916 to lobby for enfranchisement. Per the Constitution, 3/4ths of the States must ratify any proposed amendment. Finally, in 1920, 35 States had said YES, but 36 States were needed. Tennessee was the tipping point. After a first vote of the State legislature was dead-even, a second vote found one legislator changing his vote, based on a letter given to him by his mother. 24-years old Harry T. Burn made it final, and the 19th Amendment was ratified. In 1923, Paul authored the ERA, Equal Rights Amendment, but it was never ratified. Both houses passed the bill in 1972, sending it to the States, but 15 States (Illinois, Arizona, Utah, Oklahoma, Nevada, Arkansas, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia) did not vote in favor by 1982 when the time deadline was reached. It would seem the powers that be in the Southeast States over the course of our country’s history have an issue with equality for all citizens.