Women active in state politics
As archaic and civilly unjust as it might seem, women?s suffrage, the right for women to vote, did not become a reality in Tennessee until the summer of 1920. With considerable anxiety mounting before the general elections of 1920, President Woodrow Wilson called a special session of Congress, and a bill introducing an amendment allowing women the right to vote was presented before the House of Representatives. This bill passed on May 21, 1919. The state of Tennessee ratified the bill on Aug.18, 1920, and it became law on Aug. 26, 1920. This bill, the Nineteenth Amendment, is known as the Susan B. Anthony Amendment, named after, obviously, Susan B. Anthony, a major player in the women?s suffrage movement, and the same Susan B. Anthony after whom is named the highly collectible Susan B. Anthony dollar coin.
With women?s suffrage came the right for women to run for public offices. At first, women merely going to the polls on election day and casting their votes, much less attempting to run for political offices, was met with considerable skepticism in the conservative, Bible belt South, Tennessee notwithstanding. As my 88-year-old mother told me: “Even though it was legal for women to vote in Tennessee by 1920, a lot of them were reluctant to do so, especially the country women those first few years after the law came into effect. They felt their primary concerns were cooking, raising children, and washing and hanging out clothes, not sticking their noses into politics.” However, that drastically has changed over time, and in the year 2006 we have the female gender running for and getting elected to high level political offices that once were exclusive to their male counterparts.
One of the more profound examples of just how far women have come in Tennessee politics is the case of Gayle Ray, former sheriff of Davidson County/Nashville. Elected to office in 1994, Ray was Tennessee?s first female sheriff. What makes the Ray story even more significant is the fact that she was elected sheriff of Davison County not long after the position was vacated by the legendary Fate Thomas, a true shaker-and-mover in Tennessee politics, who was Davison County sheriff from 1973-1990. (Hank Hillan was Davison County sheriff from 1990-1994.) Ray getting elected sheriff, to a degree, signified a transition from the stereotype of a corrupt, cigar-chomping, marginally educated male sheriff, ala Buford T. Justice (Smokey and the Bandit) and Roscoe P. Coltrane (The Dukes of Hazzard, to one of an attractive, well-educated female capable of doing the job.
Our very own Warren County/McMinnville is no exception when it comes to women making great strides in the political arena. Local, well-known civil & criminal defense attorney Lisa Zavogiannis has made the announcement to run in the May 2006 Democratic primary for the office of district attorney general, 31st Judicial District (Warren County and Van Buren County). The buzz around town is that she is waging a strong campaign. The primary election for district attorney general, which pits Zaviogannis against local attorneys Phillip Clemons and Robert Newman, with the primary winner running against incumbent Dale Potter in the main August election, should prove to be one of the more interesting and significant in the history of Warren County.
Some other women making a viable bid for local political offices in the primary are Diane Elledge Starkey for County Clerk, and Anita Nunley, Kim Broom, Donna Brock Pelham, and Darlene Reagan Bryant for Trustee & Tax Collector.
Folks, we no longer live in a male-dominated society. Our local political scene is living proof of such.
Mike Vinson is a Warren County columnist who can be reached by e-mail at [email protected].