Women’s History Month Pick: Jeannette Rankin

Possibly my favorite woman in US history is Jeannette Rankin

Last December 8, marked the 81st anniversary of Congresswoman Rankin's sole vote against the Declaration of War against Japan. Facing hisses and calls for her to change her vote to make it unanimous, she said "I can't go to war (as a woman) so I can't send anyone else." Then she ran from a mob out for blood; hiding in a phone booth and calling the cops to save her.

If that was all she did in life she'd be a minor historical footnote. But Rankin, born in Montana, was a true groundbreaker. She got a BS in biology at a time few women attended college. Eschewing both a normal career and family, she joined the suffrage movement, organizing the NY Women's Suffrage Party and serving as lobbyist for the National American Women's Suffrage Association, facilitating suffrage victories in Montana and Washington. Improbably securing election as the first US Congresswomen ever (Montana), when women couldn't vote nationally, she cast the only female vote for universal suffrage. On April 7, 1917, Rankin was one of 50 members of Congress voting against President Wilson's Declaration of War against Germany in WWI. The majority vote for senseless war was one of the worst decisions in American history.

Her nay vote sealed her defeat in 1918 amid fanatical American nationalism. She spent the next 22 years working tirelessly for peace and the rights of women and children. In 1940, the cause of peace made her run for Congress again. She won and got the chance to vote against our last declared war. Bounced from Congress again in 1942, Rankin soldiered on for her causes of peace and justice for another 31 years.

To recognize her decades’ struggle for peace, we could honor Rankin by changing Veterans Day to Patriots Day. Then it will not only honor our military veterans and servicepersons, but all the patriots who have worked for peace, justice and human progress. Veterans Day began as Armistice Day, started by the Brits in 1919 to celebrate the pivot from war to peace. The US recognized this in 1926 to specifically to commemorate November 11 for “thanksgiving, prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations.”

At the height of the Cold War in 1954, Congress pivoted from honoring peace to veterans as America geared up for possible world war with the Soviet Union. Sixty-nine years on, peace has been largely written out of Armistice / Veterans Day story. This Women’s History Month would be an appropriate time to correct that by changing November 11, once again; this time to Patriots Day. It would honor peace patriots such as Jeannette Rankin. It would allow the millions of us veterans of the peace movement a place in a truly inclusive day of honor.