by Kelly Rogge, KCKCC
Kansas City Kansas Community College is holding its fifth annual Women’s Equality Day luncheon and program. This year the event will feature two local women – former KCK Mayor Carol Marinovich and State Rep. Kathy Wolfe Moore, D-36th Dist.
The event is noon to 1:30 p.m. Aug. 23 in Upper Jewell on the KCKCC Main Campus, 7250 State Ave. It is free and open to the public.
Women’s Equality Day commemorates the granting of women the right to vote in the United States.
First proposed in 1878, women known as suffragettes worked peacefully for more than 70 years to gain equal voting rights. Some would try to pass suffrage acts in individual states. Others organized parades, vigils or even hunger strikes.
After President Woodrow Wilson changed his position and started supporting a woman’s right to vote, other politicians soon followed his lead. On Aug. 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution was certified as law, and since 1972, every president has issued a proclamation for Women’s Equality Day.
“It’s important that we recognize the hard work it took to win the right to vote and continue to work diligently on the issues and inequities that women still face today,” said Jennifer Gieschen, coordinator of Women and Gender Advocacy at KCKCC.
Marinovich was the first woman elected mayor of KCK and was instrumental in the creation of the Village West retail and entertainment development, which helped to bring more than 4,000 new jobs to Wyandotte County.
She was named the 2005 Outstanding Kansas Citian and received both the Community Leadership Award from the Points of Light Foundation and Volunteer Service National Network and the Mayor of the Year Award from the Kansas Mayors Association. She spent 10 years as mayor of KCK.
Rep. Wolfe Moore represents the 36th District in the Kansas House of Representatives. She earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Kansas and has worked as a business director and assistant to the CEO at the University of Kansas Medical Center.
KCKCC’s Women’s Equality Day event is co-hosted by Women and Gender Advocacy, the Counseling and Advocacy Center, the American Association of University Women, the AAUW Student Chapter and the Intercultural Center.
For more information or to RSVP, contact Jennifer Gieschen at [email protected] or 913-288-7193.
