When Alice Paul stood silently in front of the White House in 1917 she hoped the protest staged by the National Women's Party would advance the cause of women's suffrage and bring American women closer to winning the right to vote. Sure enough, she set in motion dramatic events that would move the Women's Suffrage movement out of Washington, down the Potomac River and into the Occoquan Workhouse in Lorton.

In what became known as the Lorton Correctional Facility, many crusaders for women's rights were imprisoned there. Though women had been picketing the White House in pursuit of the right to vote since before World War I, condemnation of the president was considered a stridently unpatriotic act, especially in wartime. Arrested, convicted, and refusing to pay a $25 fine they deemed unjust, suffragists were incarcerated at the Occoquan Workhouse and at the District of Columbia jail. There, they were subjected to horrific conditions. Their bogus imprisonment and survival of harsh treatment at the hands of prison guards, prompted the women to go on a hunger strike. Led by National Women's Party co-founder and Paul associate, Lucy Burns, the suffragists at Occoquan Workhouse refused to eat the bland diet they were fed daily. Unwilling to let the women martyr themselves for the cause, prison administrators brutally forced food down the women's throats. Severe beatings of the striking inmates followed.

Word spread across the nation of the cruelty leveled on the imprisoned suffragists by the government. A New York Times account of the force feeding of Alice Paul (held separately in an asylum in Washington D.C), quotes Paul's sister, Helen: "How can such a brutal thing be thought of, when all she is asking is decent treatment for the others imprisoned with her?" 

Public opinion eventually became more sympathetic to the suffragists and in 1920 Congress ratified the 19^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, extending the right to vote to women. What happened to the suffragists in Lorton and in the jailhouse of Washington DC is considered by historians a turning point in the fight for women's suffrage.

Now a partnership between the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority and the League of Women Voters of the Fairfax Area is bringing the Turning Point Suffrage Memorial to life at Occoquan Regional Park in two phases. In Phase 1, a plaza commemorating the site was opened in July 2008.  

The second phase of the site is expected to open on the 100^th anniversary of the 19^th Amendment. It will both educate the public and commemorate the sacrifice of the suffragists who fought uphill against the common wisdom of their time and emerged having secured the right to vote for their daughters and granddaughters.

The memorial will feature entrance gates replicating those at the White House, decorated with banners engraved with the actual slogans used by the picketing suffragists.  A waterfall cascading over the engraved names of the more than 120 women imprisoned for the cause is included in the design, along with a walkway featuring 19 interactive exhibits telling the story of the suffrage movement. Timely completion of the memorial depends on raising the necessary funds from multiple donors.

Kathleen Pablo serves on the Turning Point Suffrage Memorial Committee. The purpose of the memorial, she says, is to "honor as fully as we can the courage and determination of these women." Pablo hopes that the memorial will put in relief the fierce struggle for the vote. The message of the suffragists in 1917, she believes, needs to be better understood by Americans today. Unjustly imprisoned for demanding their natural rights, the women held at the Occoquan Workhouse were "willing to make the ultimate sacrifice," Pablo says. "Today people won't vote because it's raining."

For more information, including plans for the site and ways to volunteer or contribute, visit the Turning Point Suffragist Memorial Website at http://www.suffragistmemorial.org/