Page 66 - South Mississippi Living - September, 2017

get registered
LEAGUE OF WOMEN
VOTERS
raising awareness for citizens
Although the League of Women Voters (LWV) has been in existence since
1920, what they do may not be well known. The organization was formed to provide women a vehicle for fulfilling their responsibilities as voters, such
as shaping public policy and raising democratic awareness among the citizenry. The Gulf Coast Chapter was started in 1956 in Bay St. Louis, and in spite of the name, men may join too.
“The LWV Mississippi Gulf Coast is open to males and females who are at least 16 years old and live in Hancock, Harrison and Jackson counties,” says
the group’s First Vice President Paige Roberts. “We currently have 44 members and meet three to four times a year
with the Board of Directors meeting monthly.”
Roberts explains that the League
is non partisan but not a-political. “Members are not required to disclose their political party affiliation,” she said. “The LWV does not endorse candidates, and certain officers are not allowed
to participate in political campaigns,
but the LWV does support political platforms and priorities. For example, this year’s priorities for the Coast Chapter are healthcare, citizens’ right to vote/know/participate, and education, employment and housing.”
Programs/Forums for the 2016-17
year include: voter registration
training and voter registration events; candidate forums for Congressional District 4, the City of Biloxi and the City of Ocean Springs; point-counterpoint with Brandon Jones and Austin Barbour; Gulf Coast Women in Solidarity March; Freedom to Vote: Past & Present in Hancock County; Making Democracy Work luncheon with guest speaker Judge Constance Harvey-Slaughter; children’s mock election at the Mary
C. Center in Ocean Springs; annual meeting featuring guest speaker Jenn Gregory from Ready to Run Mississippi at the Stennis Center for Public Service.
The organization’s 2017-18 goals include growing membership, increasing voter registration and focusing on the stated priorities. The board is also sponsoring a contest to create sustainable voter registration at local high schools.
“We sponsored a college student to attend the Ready to Run campaign training in Jackson last month because women are significantly under- represented in elected and appointed policy-making groups,” Roberts said. “The State of Mississippi is the only state in the country to never have elected a female governor, U.S. Senator or Congressman.”
The League was founded by Carrie
Chapman
Catt in
1920 during the
convention of the
National American Woman Suffrage Association. The U.S. Congress added the 19th Amendment, giving women the right to vote, to the Constitution six months later.
Despite Mississippi lawmakers’ refusal to accept the amendment, Mississippi women created a state chapter of the League of Women Voters in 1921. Eleven years later, it was defunct, but in 1956 the state and several local groups — including the first group on the Coast
— were up and running. The State of Mississippi was the last state to ratify the women’s suffrage amendment, not doing so until March 1984. There are currently four chapters in the state: Oxford/North Mississippi, Jackson, Pine Belt and Gulf Coast.
Coast Chapter officers are President, Roberta Avila; First Vice President, Paige Roberts; Second Vice President, Christy Wheeler; Secretary, Aletha Burge; Treasurer, Sarah Finnicum; and Board Member At Large, Karen Sawyer.
66 SOUTH MISSISSIPPI Living • September 2017
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story by Lynn Lofton