Susan B Anthony I owe you an apology

Susan B Anthony I owe you an apology. I woke this morning and forgot to thank you for all you did. Because of you, I am able, as a woman, to walk wherever I chose. As a woman I am free to voice my opinion. As a woman I am free to decide whether I want to have children, and rejoice loudly if that child is a female. As a woman, I am open to decision, and because of you, I am free to do so. As a woman, I can choose whether or not I want to marry, and whom I want to marry, and as a woman, I am now free to divorce.

We forgot what you went through so that we may enjoy these few basic luxuries that you never were able to enjoy. We can go to the University, to the movies, we can walk aside or in front of a man, we can talk as loud as we want, dress anyway we wish, we can dance, we can sing, and we can be respected. But you couldn’t. In a day and time when it was “forbidden” for a woman to be anything other than a slave to her man, you broke boundaries and said what we all take for granted now, I am a woman, I am a person, and I belong!

"I know nothing but woman and her disfranchised."

“The fact is, women are in chains, and their servitude is all the more debasing because they do not realize it.”

By fighting for a woman’s right to vote, you gave us the right to exist. By defying all who told you it was wrong, you gave us a voice forever. By refusing to pay the fine, you paved the way for all women to live free in a country that refused to recognize women and people of color as true citizens. You made it alright to be alive, and you made it powerful to be a woman.

And so, before I forget once more, I thank you, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for laying down what little you had to fight the biggest battle of your life. I thank you for everything I am because if you had not achieved what you had, I would still be silent because then I would have only been a woman.