Christabel Pankhurst Quotes
The Bill was talked out! Peaceful methods had failed…. As the year 1905 went on, the Liberal leaders counted upon early political office. Manchester – the Free Trade Hall – was again to be the scene of a rally at which the Liberal Party would utter their war cry for the General Election. Here was my chance! Now there should be an act the effect of which would remain, a protest not of word but of deed. Prison this time! Prison would mean a fact that could not fade from the record.
Christabel Pankhurst, 1880-1958, English Suffragist, Description of the status of a proposed Women’s Suffrage Bill, 1905, Unshackled
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
His strategy was to fill the jails of Birmingham, and asked the young people to help. The next days saw virtually all the Birmingham high school students our of school and in the streets protesting which was then against the un-Constitutional laws of Birmingham and Alabama. The students were arrested by the droves and the white authorities, believing that they were being firm against “radical lawbreakers”, fell into the trap, and became a travesty to most of the country and the rest of the world and the hundreds of jailed students beaten and assaulted raised the consciousness of whites as well as Blacks.
The demonstration was on August 8, 1643. There are several important aspects to this quotation. First, it shows that a peace movement is not only a creature of modern times. Second, that women were actively involved in political protests and demonstrations in 17th century England. Last, that the police of the time behaved as brutally as many police forces do in later centuries in putting down and surpressing demonstrations.
This was King’s first appearance on the nation’s most prestigious news show.
To support the war effort, the most militant suffragettes ceased anti Government militancy. The suffragette movement was split by WWI and the issue of pacifism. See {621266} for the anti-war factional view.
This quotation was documented by an FBI illegal wiretap of King and his associates. The illegal wiretap had been insisted upon by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover who was a racist and somewhat of a paranoid about communists. However, Attorney General, Robert F. Kennedy personally approved the illegal wiretap.
Earlier, a virtually all white police force in nearby 67% Black Ferguson, had shot an unarmed black young man who was 20 feet away with his hands up, 7 times killing him and then leaving the body uncovered on the street for over 4 hours. Many people of all races began to peacefully demonstrate in Ferguson and were met with military assault weapons pointed at them and military armored vehicles, with the police illegally (as later determined by the courts) were interfering with the right to protest. The demonstrations turned to riots and there was looting and arson of business establishments. The demonstrations started to spread to nearby St. Louis and other cities as the news spread. While the Ferguson officials had behaved so badly and stupidly, the St. Louis mayor exhibited democratic leadership that was an example for others. Slay was then a 4 term mayor, being reelected more than any other mayor in St. Louis history, and was one of the outstanding politicians in America.
Dame Christabel Harriette Pankhurst, DBE was a British suffragette born in Manchester, England. A co-founder of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), she directed its militant actions from exile in France from 1912 to 1913. In 1914 she supported the war against Germany. After the war she moved to the United States, where she worked as an evangelist for the Second Adventist movement.
