Seance with Susan B. Anthony

"Agitate! Agitate! Agitate!" 

-- quote of Anthony's lifelong friend & comrade, Frederick Douglass

Susan B. Anthony

 February 15, 1820 – March 13, 1906

On the anniversary eve of Susan's death, we may meditate on how far her desires for gender and race equality have unfolded in time. The contrast she lived, created expansion of justice that we now benefit from and continue to build upon. Within about one hundred years, the unity and justice she reached for has manifested in ways that would certainly surprise and delight her, and in ways that would also power her on to further create justice on deeper and deeper levels.

What she named as temperance, seen then as a problem of alcohol creating domestic violence within marriages that allowed women no choice but to remain abused, we now know and understand as power over and control -- and her early taking on of this contrast made individual autonomy and freedom a basis of all human rights, addressing racism and sexism as forces of evil and the unwanted, naming and dismantling the ownership of another. 

Anthony was accused of destroying the institution of marriage with her women's suffrage work, equal rights speeches and diverse coalitions.  Adamantly asserting the right to vote for women and African-Americans was not easy as simply being allowed to speak publicly was a challenge for a woman. 

At age 17, Anthony began her journey for justice by collecting signatures for anti-slavery petitions. At age 46, she initiated the American Equal Rights Association with life long friend Elizabeth Cady Stanton. And at age 52, she was arrested for voting in her hometown.

Anthony was a lifelong friend of Frederick Douglass, who dazzled audiences with his leadership, oratory skills and antislavery writings. Persons were amazed that he could be a former slave as he shared his mind and soul, and he created revolutionary change by approaching social divisions, as did Anthony, by refusing to push against them - instead uniting and creating bridges. Douglass stated when criticized for working with slaveholders: "I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong." Douglass was the first African-American man nominated for vice-president of the United States, as running mate to female presidential candidate Victoria Woodhull, of the Equal Rights Party Ticket.

The Four Cardinal Virtues

Anthony and Douglass worked together through their lives for social justice for women, African-Americans, and immigrants. They not only supported each other's causes, but acted for each other's lives, unified in love.