The League of Women Voters of Louisville (LWVL), founded on November 26, 1920, encourages the informed and active participation of citizens in government, works to increase understanding of major policy issues, and influences public policy through education and advocacy. Membership in the League is open to women and men of all ages. For more information, email us at lwvlouisville@gmail.com or phone us at 502-895-5218.

When you join LWVL, you also become a member of national, state and local leagues -- three levels of government and legislative activity.

News and Upcoming Events:

Our office remains closed until further notice due to the COVID-19 crisis.

A message from President Pat Murrell

 The world keeps changing, and the League will continue to work to make democracy work in whatever ways are needed in the world after the pandemic. 

To many of us, the festive celebration of the League’s 100th anniversary in February already seems like a distant memory, a pleasant but hazy moment from another era. Like everyone else, we have been pausing and, out of necessity, putting things off; regular committee meetings and other gatherings have been postponed. But we remain hopeful, especially about two important upcoming events:

The June 22 Annual Meeting. We’re still working out the form and the details,  And, with the requirements of social distancing, we will have to be creative about how to compile the Budget Committee and Nominating Committee reports. We need to mail them to members a month in advance.

The November 12 celbration of the Louisville League's 100th anniversary. We have planned a luncheon downtown at the Seelbach hotel, which was the site of early meetings that resulted in the creation of the Louisville and Kentucky Leagues. Our speaker for the celebration is scheduled to be Carolyn Jefferson-Jenkins, a key figure in the national League’s history. She served two terms, from 1998 to 2002, as the League’s first and only African-American president. She is a university professor, a civil rights leader, and author of “The Untold Story of Women of Color in the League of Women Voters.”

 July has traditionally been a vacation month, but we hope we will be able to begin committee meetings, including the Incarcerated Women study, as soon afterward as possible, in August or September.

Brown Bag Book Discussions. We hope to renew these gatherings in the summer or fall. But even without them we can still read the books, including the two most recent recommendations:

For March: “The Fifth Risk,” by Michael Lewis, discussion leader Rose Hamblen. Lewis, “the poet laureate of computer-driven data analysis,” according to a New York Times review, examines the Trump administration and the importance of the federal bureaucracy.

For April: “The Unconscious Civilization,” by John Ralston Saul, discussion leader Barb Kelty. Publishers Weekly said, “His erudite, often profound analysis challenges conservatives and liberals alike with its sweeping critique of  Western culture, society and economic organization.”

And, I’d like to recommend two others for discussion whenever:

“Educated,” by Tara Westover, a memoir of a woman who grew up in an Idaho survivalist family and earned her Ph.D in history at Cambridge; it was selected by The New York Times Book Review as one of the 10 best books of 2018.

“Just Mercy,” by Bryan Stevenson, “the true story of Stevenson's efforts to free a poor black man in Alabama, Walter McMillian, who spent six years on death row for a murder he plainly did not commit, “ according to a National Public Radio review.

Carmichael’s Bookstore will deliver or mail books.

 As we go through this history-making time, we are all facing new challenges. And we know more challenges are yet to come, as we try to figure out what happens next.