Paul and other women became the first to picket the White House. Starting in January 1917, they spent eighteen months picketing. Over 1,000 “Silent Sentinels” slowly marched, day and night, in front of the White House gates, displaying suffrage banners with messages such as, “Mr. President, how long must women wait for liberty?" They endured the verbal and physical attacks of spectators which only increased after the United States entered World War I and the women’s signs became more accusatory, asking President Wilson how he could send American men to die in a war for democracy when he denied women the right to vote at home. Instead of protecting the women, the police began arresting them for obstructing traffic. As the women continued picketing, their jail sentences grew longer. Paul was sentence to jail for seven months. In jail, she organized a hunger strike to protest their incarceration. Doctors threatened to send Paul to an insane asylum, but she continued to refuse to eat and so they force fed her. Newspapers printed stories about the women’s treatment in jail, garnering public sympathy and support for the cause. By 1918, President Wilson publicly announced his support for suffrage. It took two more years for the Senate, House, and the required 36 states to approve the amendment.
After the 19th Amendment passed in 1920, Paul and the National Women’s Party focused their attention on the Equal Rights Amendment. This amendment would guarantee women protection from discrimination. Paul spent the rest of her life advocating for this and other women’s issues. She than died in 1977. Leaving her legacy behind.
( The Hunger Strike meant when food was given to the ones imprisoned, they would refuse to eat the food to make a point and get their point across. NO FOOD, NO DRINKS! Alice Paul is in the middle)
Analysis: The Hunger Strike was a great way to get attention, and to get attention fast, if you wanted to get your points across in a matter of time to make changes and that exactly what Alice Paul and many others had in mind. It is also very dangerous to do, without eating you began to get weak, and the enemies do not care they force fed the Women who chose The Hunger Strike. It was a very rough era, but it made a difference and why now women have the rights to do many things.