On a sunny Sunday in June 1908, the British suffragettes, led by Emmeline Pankhurst, mobilized 500,000 people (men and women) to demonstrate through the streets of London demanding that the Liberal government support the vote for women.
Some 500,000 women and men from all over the country, dressed in the colors of the Women’s Social and Political Union (Women’s Social Political Union)–white, green and purple–attend the call and 30,000 leave from different parts of the city organized in columns, towards Hyde Park in seven processions carrying 700 banners, including one reading: “Not chivalry but justice”.
It is considered the largest demonstration held so far in the country.
The conservative daily The Times declares: “in the last quarter of a century such a massive act had not been seen”.
Fed up with being ignored and being treated by the police, they get tired of fighting with the word, “Deeds, not words” (Facts, not words) and decide to take action, they undertake violent acts, -always against property, never against people-, Thus a group throws two bombs against the house of the Minister of Finance David Lloyd George, which causes Emmeline’s sentence to three years in prison. Although the martyr of the cause will be Emily Wilding Davison who, as a symbol of resistance, throws herself under the horse of King George V, during the Epson derby. The brave suffragette dies as a result of her wounds.
Ten years later, on February 16, 1918, after a long struggle, British women won the right to vote. On December 14 of that same year, they make a show of it by voting in the elections for the House of Commons.
