11/03/2026
Make a plan to tomorrow. Many generations of women fought for you to have that right.
🇺🇸🗳☑️❤️🤍💙
She was jailed more than any other American suffragist. She was beaten with clubs, thrown in solitary, chained by her wrists to the bars of her cell for an entire night, and force-fed through her nose when she refused to eat. Lucy Burns endured all of it for a single crime: demanding that women be allowed to vote.
This Election Day, women across the country are exercising the very right she was tortured for. Along with Alice Paul, Burns founded the National Woman’s Party and led the “Silent Sentinels,” a group of suffragists who picketed in front of the White House six days a week for two and a half years in pursuit of voting rights for women.
Burns and a fellow activist were arrested on June 22, 1917, for carrying a banner quoting President Woodrow Wilson himself: “We shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts -- for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments."
She was arrested again in front of the White House on the charge of obstructing traffic in September and was sentenced to 60 days in jail at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia. While imprisoned, Burns helped to write one of the first documents outlining the rights and demands of political prisoners. She circulated the document through holes in the prison walls until every suffrage prisoner added her name. Once the prison officials became aware of Burns' organizing activities, she was isolated in solitary confinement.
In November, she was arrested again for picketing the White House and the judge sought to make an example of Burns, as he did with Alice Paul, by giving her the maximum sentence of six months. When she returned to the Occoquan Workhouse with a group of 32 suffrage prisoners, they endured what became known as the "Night of Terror."
The Workhouse's Superintendent, W.H. Whittaker, ordered nearly 40 guards to brutalize the women. The suffragists were beaten with clubs and refused medical attention. As the group's leader, Burns was singled out for special treatment and, after beating her, guards chained her hands to the cell bars above her head for the night. In solidarity, the women in the cell across from Burns stood in the same position, holding their hands above their heads.
In protest of the abuse and dreadful conditions at the Occoquan Workhouse, Burns joined Paul and other suffragists in a hunger strike. The warden eventually ordered the women be force fed. Historian Eleanor Clift recounts that the force feeding of Lucy Burns required "five people to hold her down, and when she refused to open her mouth, they shoved the feeding tube up her nostril" -- a dangerous and extremely painful feeding method.
Widespread press coverage of these abuses, along with on-going protests, strongly influenced the Wilson Administration who declared, in January 1918, that women's suffrage was urgently needed as a "war measure" and asked Congress to act.
Together with Paul and others in the National Women’s Party, Burn’s heroic efforts brought the attention of the world to the struggle for women’s rights in America, and led to the ratification of the 19th amendment in 1920. Its passage marked the victorious end of a 72-year long struggle to achieve equal voting rights for women which had begun at the first women's right conference organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848.
Let’s cast our ballots in their honor -- for Lucy Burns, for the Silent Sentinels, for every woman who refused to wait any longer for liberty.
For an excellent children's book about this courageous suffrage leader, we highly recommend "Alice Paul, Lucy Burns, and Their Big Idea" for ages 7 to 12 at https://www.amightygirl.com/how-women-won-the-vote
For older kids, we also recommend this youth-friendly introduction to the fight for women's suffrage in the US: "Rightfully Ours: How Women Won The Vote" for ages 9 and up at https://www.amightygirl.com/rightfully-ours
Lucy Burns is also featured prominently in the exceptional book for adult readers: "A Woman's Crusade: Alice Paul and the Battle for the Ballot" at https://www.amightygirl.com/a-woman-s-crusade
For more books for children, teens, and adults about the heroic women of the Suffrage Movement, visit our blog post, "The Best Books About the U.S. Suffrage Movement For Kids and Adults, ” at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=11827
For our favorite t-shirt honoring women throughout history who were willing to shake up the system, check out the "Well behaved women seldom make history" t-shirt -- available in a variety of styles and colors for all ages -- at https://www.amightygirl.com/well-behaved-women-history-shirt
