‘Dangerous Ladies’ documentary on women’s right to vote premieres at Sarasota Film Fest
As the American colonies prepared to declare their independence from Great Britain in 1776, Abigail Adams urged her husband, John Adams, to “remember the ladies”
Abigail wanted John, a future president of the United States, to help ensure the rights of women by enshrining them in the declaration.
But like almost everything involved with the women’s equality movement, nothing would be easy.
It would take decades of speeches, marches, demonstrations, organizing, conventions, and being ridiculed and jailed — about 150 years worth after Abigail’s request — before Congress “remembered the ladies” by passing a constitutional amendment granting them the right to vote.
It would be yet another 44 years before the Voting Rights Act of 1964 was passed by Congress, banning discrimination at the polls on the basis of race, color, sex, religion or national origin.
The documentary, “Dangerous Ladies: Voices of the Suffragists,” explores that long, painful struggle. The 67-minute film, directed by Kate Alexander, associate director of the Florida Studio Theatre, and Charles Clapsaddle, METV station manager, premieres at the Sarasota Film Festival this week. Also key to the production was the participation of BTN Films.
“This is our seventh entry into the Sarasota Film Festival and we couldn’t be more proud of that accomplishment. Working with Kate Alexander from Florida Studio Theatre was indeed a pleasure and we are very pleased with the finished project,” Clapsaddle said this week.
Among those appearing in the documentary is Charlayne Hunter-Gault, a civil rights pioneer who was one of the first two Black students to integrate the University of Georgia. She went on to build a distinguished journalism career at the New York Times, the MacNeil-Lehrer Report, the PBS NewsHour, and NPR as chief correspondent in Africa.
“It didn’t take me a millisecond to agree to participate. I have a deep appreciation for history, and ensuring that all of our history is included, especially for our young people. We have so much division in our country. It’s greater than it has ever been,” Hunter-Gault said this week in an interview with the Bradenton Herald. “I wanted to be a part of something to narrow that division.”
There was a saying in the early days of the civil rights movement to “keep on keeping on,” which meant to keep working for equal rights, a goal that would not be achieved in the short term.
“It is important to appreciate what we as a nation stand for and what it took for us to get this far,” she said, adding that working for a more perfect union is a complicated struggle.
Quoting the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Hunter-Gault said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.”
What happens in America has a far-reaching impact around the world, she said.
America played a very important role in bringing an end to apartheid in South Africa, she said.
Originally, the creators of “Dangerous Ladies” wanted to present the documentary in 2020, the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, granting women the right to vote in national elections.
But the COVID-19 pandemic upset those plans and many others, said Kate Alexander of the Florida Studio Theatre.
Much of the documentary was produced in the Florida Studio Theatre, 1241 N. Palm Ave, Sarasota, which was originally built by women in the suffrage movement as a woman’s club.
While it may be assumed that all women could begin voting in 1920, that isn’t true, especially for women of color who were disenfranchised by poll taxes and literacy tests. It would take the voting rights act to finally open the polls to Black women.
If you go
The film premieres in a social distanced setting with fewer tickets available this year than in a normal year.
Virtual tickets are available at https://sarasotafilmfestival.com/films/.
