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  • British suffragettes were masters of spectacle.

  • Their mission was to win British women the right to vote, and to do that, they needed

  • attention.

  • Their demonstrations were tightly-choreographed events, full of matching outfits and signs.

  • But it was their radical actions that made them notorious.

  • They smashed windows.

  • Destroyed fine art.

  • And set fire to the houses of their political opponents.

  • All in the name of keeping their fight on the front page of the paper, and in the minds

  • of the public.

  • Newsreels from the time show the destruction the suffragettes left behind.

  • But there's one act that stands out above the rest.

  • It took place in 1913, at one of the most popular sporting events of the year,

  • A horse race.

  • Where newsreel cameras captured a lone figure, stepping onto the racetrack and doing this.

  • She was holding a suffragette flag.

  • Women had been petitioning for the vote in England since the mid-1800s.

  • They were calledsuffragists,” and had a non-confrontational strategy of persuasion

  • and education to convince legislators to give women the vote.

  • But in 1903, a new branch emerged: the militant suffragists, whose motto wasDeeds Not

  • Words.”

  • Frustrated by the lack of progress they began seeking attention by disrupting men's political

  • meetings with loud heckling and getting arrested for things like spitting on policemen.

  • Prompting one newspaper in 1906 to call the noisy disruptorssuffragettes.”

  • A name meant to diminish or mock the new militant activists as hysterical and childish.

  • But one they embraced, even changing the name of their newspaper, “Votes for Women,”

  • toThe Suffragette.”

  • The militant suffragettes had a bad reputation in the press, and drew criticism from the

  • wider suffrage movement fortaking it too farand setting progress back with their

  • disruptive acts.

  • The suffragettes were depicted as unfeminine and crazed, so public pageantry and controlling

  • their image was an important part of the movement.

  • They delivered speeches.

  • Made colorful banners.

  • Marched.

  • And got arrested in public again and again.

  • Usually wearing their official color scheme: Purple for loyalty, green for hope, and white.

  • Which represented the virtue of their campaign.

  • But also read well in sepia-tone news photos.

  • But the militant suffragettes' publicity strategy changed in late 1910.

  • A riot breaks out in Parliament Square.

  • And that day became known asBlack Friday.”

  • Because about 150 women were physically and sexually assaulted by the police.

  • From here forward, the suffragettes organized fewer public demonstrations, where they'd

  • be surrounded by police.

  • Shifting instead to a radical approach of random acts of property destruction.

  • The telephone wires are cut.

  • Windows are smashed.

  • Sporting facilities are attacked.

  • As their actions became more and more extreme in the early 1910s, the militant suffragettes

  • became notorious villains in the mediaand in public opinion.

  • But their message was clear.

  • The destruction won't stop until a suffrage bill passes.

  • Emily Wilding Davison was one of the most extreme of the militant suffragettes, and

  • no stranger to violence.

  • She once beat a man that she had mistaken for a specific politician with a horse whip.

  • She also set fire to mailboxes, inspiring some suffragettes to follow her radical example.

  • She was jailed nine times.

  • And while imprisoned, would go on hunger strike, and was subsequently force-fed through her

  • nose.

  • An extremely painful form of torture that the government enacted on many hunger-striking

  • suffragettes to prevent them from dying of starvation in prison.

  • Davison was willing to die in the name of women's liberation.

  • During one of her imprisonments in 1912, she threw herself from a prison balcony in a suicide

  • attempt.

  • To draw public sympathy for the suffragettes undergoing torturous force feeding in jail.

  • She said afterward:

  • The following year is when Davison pushed her dedication todeeds not wordsto

  • the most extreme.

  • At the 1913 Epsom Derby.

  • The Epsom Derby is England's most prestigious horse race – a beloved and historic event

  • that's been run since 1780.

  • That year, over 500,000 people were in attendance.

  • King George V was there too.

  • His horse, Anmer, was running the race.

  • And in the crowded inner track, Emily Davison stood near Tattenham Corner.

  • It's the final turn, right before the dead sprint to the finish line.

  • A prominent spot sure to be in view of the cameras, which were positioned around the

  • track covering important parts of the race.

  • In the footage, you can see Davison duck under the rail and wait for the leading pack of

  • horses to go by.

  • Then step out onto the track, right in front of Anmer, the king's horse.

  • She was holding the purple, white, and green flag of the militant suffragettes.

  • Emily Davison brought the two-ton racehorse crashing to ground, and flipped its rider.

  • She died four days later of her injuries.

  • After years of escalating militant violence was photographed after the fact...

  • Or imagined in news illustrations….

  • This was the firstand onlyact of militant suffragette violence captured on

  • film.

  • And it was a huge story.

  • People responded with a mix of shock and outrage.

  • Davison was framed as a radical who ruined something everyone lovesthe Derby.

  • For the suffragettes, she became a martyr.

  • The next issue of their magazine featured Davison as an angel on the cover, standing

  • on a race track.

  • They organized a massive public funeral, where 5,000 suffragettes, wearing white dresses

  • and black armbands, marched in solemn procession through London.

  • Carrying Davison's casket from Victoria Station to Kings Cross Station, to be sent

  • to her hometown for burial.

  • 50,000 people watched it go by.

  • The spectacle of Davison's funeral brought sympathy for the struggle for women's suffrage

  • to a global level.

  • And, as it turns out, was basically the last public procession of the militant suffragettes.

  • World War I broke out the following year.

  • And the suffragettes put their militant activities on hold to contribute to the war effort.

  • Suffrage was extended to women over 30 in 1918, and full suffrage passed in 1928.

  • Emily Davison's shocking final protest at the Derby probably didn't change many people's

  • minds about women's suffrage.

  • And whether or not she intended to die remains unclearshe didn't tell anyone her plan,

  • and she didn't leave a note.

  • But this momentcaught on camerabecame one of the most publicized acts of suffragette

  • protest.

  • One so extreme that no one, not even the king himself, could ignore.

  • There's so many great archival photos and illustrations from the suffragette movement

  • that I didn't have time to include in this videolike this cartoon:

  • It was published in a British magazine in 1910, and is called The Suffragette that Knew

  • Jiu-Jitsu.

  • It shows terrified police officers surrounding a lone woman, standing in front of a “Votes

  • for Womensign, with a few of their comrades tossed onto the fence behind her.

  • It might seem like a parody or a joke, but the thing is: suffragettes really did train

  • in jiu jitsu.

  • As a response to the continued aggression by London police during demonstrationslike

  • on Black Fridaythe suffragettes hired Edith Margaret Garrud, a professional martial

  • arts instructor, to teach them how to defend themselves during riots.

  • It's sort of unclear how often the suffragettes used this specific skill set during their

  • clashes with police, but newspapers at the time claimed thesejiu-jitsu experts

  • could throw a 200 pound police officer over their heads.

  • Ouch.

British suffragettes were masters of spectacle.

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