Florida Suffrage Tea Time Event Focuses on Women in Law

Justice Grosshans (bottom right corner) offered words of advice for law students and young lawyers during the November 19, 2020, Virtual Florida Suffrage Tea Time hosted by the Florida Commission on the Status of Women and The Florida Bar.

In November, Supreme Court Justice Jamie R. Grosshans, Florida State Representative and member of the Florida Women’s Suffrage Centennial Commission Fentrice Driskell, and Florida Bar President Dori Foster-Morales joined FCSW Commissioner Melanie Bonanno to discuss the impact of women in the judiciary as part The Florida Commission on the Status of Women’s Florida Suffrage Tea Time, a virtual series of monthly interviews, lectures, and discussions on the women’s suffrage movement.

The panel also focused on how suffrage opened the door for women to serve on juries, become attorneys and judges, and run for elective office.

2020 marks the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment which enfranchises U.S. citizens regardless of sex. For 70 years, women throughout the United States had petitioned at the state and national levels for their right to vote, and on August 18, 1920, women won a huge battle with the ratification of the 19th Amendment. Work was still left to ensure voting rights for all women, especially in the Jim Crow south, and women of color would not have full legal voting rights and protections until the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.