A Q&A with Susan B. Anthony
The leading lady at our League Day on February 14 arrived in a glissade of tinkling music, as if she were descending from heaven. Indeed, she wore a halo. The mischievous spirit of Susan B. Anthony, crusader for women’s suffrage, had appeared. She looked pretty good considering that she’s been dead for about 114 years. The sprite returned in honor of the dual hundredth anniversaries of the League of Women Voters and the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which granted women the right to vote.
Renee Chanon
The embodiment of our ghostly guest was L.A. League member Renee Chanon, who for more than fifteen years has made a bit of a career portraying the suffragist in her presentation, “From Corsets and Bloomers to Body Piercing and Tattoos: The Women's Movement,” in which she documents the suffragists in their struggle to secure women’s right to vote and tells the origin story of the League of Women Voters. A history lesson sprinkled with surprising anecdotes and humorous insights, the performance nevertheless reveals the humiliating and often dangerous work of defying restrictive social rules and discriminatory laws: Suffragists were routinely roughed up, arrested, and charged with the serious crime of seeking women’s right to vote.
We’re glad Susan B. Anthony was here in more than spirit on our special centennial day. But sadly, we learned that Chanon has plans to retire. She is now seeking a replacement to fill the role. We asked her a few questions about her experiences.
Q: Renee, how did you come to play this role?
A: It started 1998, when I went to the 150th anniversary of the Seneca Falls convention with my friend Linda Jenkins. There, we both got bit by the women’s history bug. After that, I was called on to be a speaker at a Rotary Club. So I gave a speech about what we had learned—I didn’t wear a costume at first. After doing the speech a couple of times, we realized we could make it better by doing a reenactment, with me playing Susan B. and Linda as Elizabeth Cady Stanton. So a costumer sewed our first outfits. We really got rolling when we published our contact information on the website of the National Women’s History Alliance. People started calling us to perform for Women’s History Month events. We got calls from DAR [Daughters of the American Revolution] chapters and federal agencies. We got a lot of referrals for California gigs, even performed once for the EPA in Washington, D.C. The idea was to write women back into history, to educate people about the struggle women had. After a few years, my friend was unable to continue in the Elizabeth Cady Stanton role, so I went on to perform solo.
Q: Why is it so important that we remember Susan B. Anthony and her struggle?
A: She is the face of women winning the right to vote. Sure, others did a lot, but Susan B. Anthony is the one whose name is recognized, who ended up in the spotlight and on a dollar coin. Her story reminds us that nothing came easy. Most people don’t know about this struggle. They just assume that we came by our rights easily. Many people believe that we currently have the Equal Rights Amendment, that it has already passed. But no, it’s not in the Constitution.
Q: We’re sorry to hear that you are retiring from the role. Who will carry on for you?
A: It’s really been rewarding playing this part. We are looking for the right person—someone who shares a passion for women’s history. She doesn’t need acting chops. Someone who recognizes the need to educate and inform on women’s role in history. It would be nice to find someone who has connections to schools, to LAUSD and beyond. Will we find the right person? I hope so. I will provide a script and help the newbie into the role!
Readers: Do you know of an actress or would-be Susan B. Anthony? Please let us know! For more information, email Renee Chanon at rchanon [at] aol.com or call the LWV Los Angeles office at (213) 368-1616.
—Carol Caley
