PASADENA, Calif. – “Failure is impossible.” These famous words were spoken by Susan B. Anthony days before her death. She was speaking for the many women who had worked with her for women's rights, but it would be another 14 years before the U.S. Constitution gave women the right to vote in 1920.

To celebrate the 100th Anniversary of Women’s Suffrage, Pasadena resident Nan Johnson decided to spearhead a float for the Rose Parade and invite descendants of civil rights leaders to ride along.

“It’s been my inspiration for around 60 years or so,” said Nan Johnson, Founder and Senior Advisor of the Pasadena Celebrates 2020 effort. “I mean. This is something I’ve done all my life. I’ve been interested in politics and women’s rights and I’ve been very active. I taught political science at the University of Rochester.”

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Nan is 90 years old so her right to vote was only around a decade by the time she was born.

“Isn’t that an amazing thing to think about,” asks Johnson. “My grandmother loved the whole issue, but of course, she couldn’t vote at the time she was born and living as a young woman.”

But just because Johnson had the right to vote, it didn’t mean it was easy for her to stuff the ballot box. The first time she went, she got stopped.

“I went to vote and a person came there and he said, ‘Well we have to have some identification for you,” said Johnson. “And I said, ‘Oh, you do.’ And he said, ‘Yes, before to know that you’re literate.’ So I went back and got my diploma, which was in Latin and brought it to them and said ‘I think you will agree I can probably vote.’”

And yes, they agreed. The float is called “Years of Hope, Years of Courage” and riders include direct descendants of Susan B. Anthony, Frederick Douglass, Dolores Huerta, and Harriet Tubman.

 

 

 

Ernestine Martin Wyatt is Harriet Tubman’s great-great-great-grandniece. Her great-great-grandmother was the daughter of one of Tubman’s sisters. From Washington D.C., she is in town to join the parade and ride along in Nan’s float.

“We don’t have a right to ever take our ability to vote for granted,” said Wyatt. “As an African-American, the vote was held from us so you know I know so well what that means to have that vote. How important that vote was and still is today.”

Wyatt doesn’t take her legacy or vote for granted. And she is ready for whatever outcome, whatever that may be. For Johnson, she hopes her vote can help bring everyone together.

“In the next 100 years, I hope we will come together and decide that war is not an option anymore for conflict and on people and we will not have it,” said Johnson.

Johnson and Wyatt are both ready for change, but let’s not wait another century for that.