Well Done, Sister Suffragette!

During the lovely Madelyn Simone’s recent visit to Pop-Pop’s house, we dusted off the VCR and watched Mary Poppins, a Disney film released fifty years ago. I can’t remember if I first saw the movie at the Star Theatre in Tonawanda, NY, or across the bridge at the Riviera Theatre, but whatever the venue, I was definitely charmed by the adventures of Mary, Bert, Jane and Michael.

It was quite the movie in its time, bringing five Academy Awards to the Disney studio. The profits from the film allowed Walt Disney to purchase 27,500 acres of land in central Florida, changing family vacations forever. Be sure to say thank you to the perfect nanny the next time you pass through the gates of the Magic Kingdom.

My fondest memory of Mary Poppins is from the piano in my childhood home, as I played the songs from the film over and over again. As I think about those days, my fingers are itching to trade the computer keyboard for the eighty-eight keys of the piano. I wonder what my sleeping household would think of “Step in Time” as a morning wake-up call?

Fifty years later, the words sprang easily to my lips as Jane and Michael clung to the string of their kite in “Let’s Go Fly a Kite,” happily swallowed their medicine with “Just a Spoonful of Sugar,” and nodded off to sleep in “Stay Awake.” I brushed aside a tear as Julie Andrews sang “Feed the Birds,” my favorite from that tattered volume of Mary Poppins songs, and chuckled along with Uncle Albert in “I Love to Laugh.” Yet I was especially struck by “Sister Suffragette,” led quite enthusiastically by Mrs. Banks, the mother of the household.

Apparently, her role as a suffragette was an addition to the movie version to explain why Mrs. Banks did not have time to take care of her own children. It’s played rather comically, but one line in particular stands out: “Our daughters’ daughters will adore us, as they sing in grateful chorus, well done, sister suffragettes.” At age four, Madelyn has no idea what Mrs. Banks is talking about, but it has been less than one hundred years since the nineteenth amendment to the constitution was passed, giving women the vote across the United States. It was the women suffragettes, with their protests, their parades, and even their hunger strikes, who changed our world.

I didn’t know much about the suffragettes until I stumbled across Katja von Garnier’s film, “Iron Jawed Angels.” Her depiction of suffragette leaders Alice Paul and Lucy Burns was in stark contrast to Winifred Banks marching through the halls of Seventeen Cherry Tree Lane. Yet Mrs. Banks’ suffragette actions nudged me to remember that there was a time, not all that long ago, when gender disqualified half of our country’s citizens from voting.

Watching 12 Years a Slave, I had a similar nudge. It wasn’t all that long ago that slavery was legal in the United States. It was the nineteenth century abolitionists who pushed hard for slavery to be eliminated, often at great risk to themselves and their families. Even after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued by Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, it took one hundred more years for the passage of the Civil Rights Act 1964, and the continued lifting of voices has allowed our children to see race through colorless lenses.

“Well done, sister suffragettes.” Well done, abolitionists, civil rights workers. Your voice made a difference. Yet new voices are being called forth in our day. Voices that speak to the scourge of modern day slavery, the plight of kidnapped young women in Chibok, Nigeria, and sexual trafficking. Voices that call for immigration reform. Voices that speak of global warming. These voices are our century’s suffragettes and abolitionists.

Tucked away in a fifty-year-old children’s movie when I least expected them were these compelling reminders. There is a time for kite-flying, a time to feed the birds on the steps of the cathedral, and a time to lift our voices to transform the world our daughters’ daughters (and sons) will inherit from us. Thanks, Mary Poppins. It was good to see you again.