Women’s History Museum & Educational Center Celebrates Women’s Equality Day with Second Annual Suffrage Parade and Ball Saturday, August 29th, Balboa Park

 Women’s history is alive and well in San Diego and marching across the Laurel Street Bridge!

 It’s time to toss away the outdated image of a history museum as only a building which displays artifacts from past eras, offering little relevance to today’s society. Replace that with a vision of a history museum as a living entity involved and contributing to its community through inspiration, education, and collaboration. That’s exactly what the Women’s History Museum & Educational Center is doing.

 On Saturday, August 29, the Women’s History Museum & Educational Center will host the Second Annual Suffrage Parade and Ball in celebration of Women’s Equality Day at the Balboa Park Club. The event commemorates the passage of the 19th Amendment, which gave American women the right to vote and reflects on the “Herstory” of San Diego and the United States. It’s part historical reenactment; part community awareness and part just plain fun!

 According to Ashley Gardner, Executive Director of the museum, this event is exactly what this museum is supposed to do.

 “Part of our mission statement is to ‘educate present and future generations’ and this event fulfills that mission very well. It’s an opportunity to invite the community to examine our past and hopefully, learn from it. The third decade of this century in America is rich with stories about women’s contributions to our society as well as the impact which museums themselves made during the Great Depression. Women such as Francis Perkins, becoming the first female cabinet member under FDR and leaving an indelible mark on our country; Nellie Ross became the first woman to head the US Mint; Mary McCleod Bethune founded the National Council of Negro Women; It’s a long and impressive list and we will feature much of it at the event on the 29th.”

 Congresswoman Susan A. Davis, Judy “The Beauty” Forman, owner of the Big Kitchen in South Park and Women’s Rights Activist Gracia Molina de Pick will act as honorary Grand Marshals of the Suffragist Parade which begins at 4 p.m.

 The parade will start at the Kate Sessions’ statue, located at the 6th Avenue side of the Laurel Street Bridge, proceeding across the bridge, through the park to the Balboa Park Club lawn for a lemonade social. The parade and social are free and the community is encouraged to participate by dressing in suffragist clothing of the day and carrying “Votes for Women” signs. Marchers will be accompanied by vintage cars from the 1930s.

 Following the parade, The Suffrage Ball will take place in the Balboa Park Club from 6 to 9 p.m. This year’s theme, the “Journey to the 30’s”, will include a look back in time, to the second decade in which American women were allowed to vote in federal elections as well as life during the Great Depression. Participants are encouraged to dress in “thirties” costumes, ranging from railway riders and flour sack dresses to silver screen heartthrobs and music sensations. Just in case John Dillinger or Bonnie and Clyde show up, the San Diego Police Historical Association will be on hand with their authentic 1934 Paddy Wagon.