It isn’t just about women in long skirts finally voting. The racists and the rich know that, and the politicians worry.
Welcome to one of the October 29th stops on the blog tour for Far Beyond Woman Suffrage by David McCracken with Goddess Fish Promotions. Be sure to follow the rest of the tour for spotlights, reviews, author guest posts, and a giveaway! More on that at the end of this post.
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Author Guest Post
What does my book on woman suffrage have to do with today? Didn’t the 19th Amendment settle that in 1920? No, the “Prices of the Vote” in my subtitle alludes to that ongoing struggle. The first price was to exclude non-white women from the discussion, and it is still being paid, even by Native Americans. The fact that a major political party in the United States is actively working to curtail voting, especially by non-whites and, yes, women, indicates the struggle is not won. As my novelette makes plain, by the 20th century, the resistance to woman suffrage was intimately bound up in resistance to black woman and black man suffrage. And look where the resistance is focused now. It is even using the filibuster that was the center of the South’s resistance to civil rights. Now the “party of Lincoln” is leading the repression, though it previously led the civil rights fight.
The struggle for woman suffrage was one of the great dramas of our time. Imagine, throughout most of the world, half the human race, men, held the other half, women, in bondage. Yes, even white women were chattel, limited in their right to education, occupation, and property, even in their rights to their children. I choke up, still, when I read my account of the conclusive fight in the Tennessee House. I hope that by humanizing the struggle through a fictitious heroine with her hopes and feelings, the drama will come through for you and thus bring the necessary historical background alive. It is more current than we (men) would like to think. I am gratified that many reviewers have felt it.
I will continue the story in coming volumes. I hope to have the next one, Far Beyond Woman Suffrage: Testing the Limits, ready by 2/2/22. You can see how I’m coming on that through my website for all my books, DoFancifulFlights.com. In addition, I’m working on a couple of other books to fill out the promise of that title. Stay tuned in.
And VOTE!
About the Book
Far Beyond Woman Suffrage
The Prices of the Vote
by David McCracken
Published 25 August 2021
Genre: Alternate History
Page Count: 120
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Far Beyond Woman Suffrage: The Prices of the Vote
It isn’t just about women in long skirts finally voting. The racists and the rich know that, and the politicians worry.
Mercy Martin has an inside view as the battle for woman suffrage nears a climax, but she encounters many puzzles:
- So many women and Southern states oppose votes for women;
- So many people are afraid it would bring on free love, abandonment of family, economic catastrophe, or communism.
- So many suffragists are willing to abandon black women voters.
From an innocent teen to a young adult, Mercy has a central role in the campaign. She advances from confinement in a suffragist jail cell to the national campaign for the suffrage amendment. She campaigns around Tennessee, ending at the capitol for the explosive climax in the last state that might ratify the amendment and grant the vote to women.
Why should something so clearly right be so hard, and why were some bitter compromises made? Mercy is right in the middle, relied on by key players. Along the way, she acquires a husband, a baby, and better parents than she was born with.
This is an intimate view via alternative historical fiction, as accurate as it can be and as thoughtful and moving as it must be. In this first novella of a series, Mercy jumps into the campaign for woman suffrage and prepares for a vital role in the coming decades. She’ll continue on into the wider civil rights struggle growing out of woman suffrage.
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Excerpt
On the line, 2/2/1918
Freedom! Grandma has taught me to drive her Model T. Cranking it may be a problem when my belly gets bigger, but for now, I can often come down for an assignment on the sentinel line without troubling Grandma. I feel so modern.
Yesterday Alice was on the line with me, and I got to talk with her afterward. What a strong personality! I would do anything she said. She was so calm when young men, some in military uniforms, harassed and pushed us. The police never intervened, except to arrest other men who tried to protect us. I always thought policemen were the people’s guardians. I hope my baby can have a world where that is true again. If it ever was.
Today I talked with a fellow volunteer, Jessica McReady, a friend from high school. She’d gone on to Maryland State College, nearby in College Park, while I was sick. She’s among the first female students enrolled there. How I envy her! She’s already planning to work for the federal government when she graduates. I wonder what I’ll even be able to do after I have the baby.
About the Author
David McCracken became a political activist when the Supreme Court ruled against school segregation. Fellow students joined him in urging the school board in Winchester, KY, to integrate immediately. He campaigned for a Democratic governor and joined the ACLU before he graduated from the University of Kentucky. After debating at U.K., he got a degree in economics and a job with the U.S. Department of Commerce.
When his daughters approached school age, he became increasingly concerned with how he wanted them schooled. Researching that, he decided teaching was what he really wanted to do. He got a master’s degree in elementary education at Murray State University. He taught for several years, until the fact that his girls qualified for reduced-price lunches based on his salary got to him. Ronald Reagan’s anti-government policies prevented him from returning to government work, so he took programming courses and shifted careers again. Programming was like being paid to solve puzzles all day, but teaching eventually drew him back until retirement.
For many years of this time, he was working intermittently at a novel that became Fly Twice Backward: Fresh Starts in Times of Troubles. This concerned his waking on his twelfth birthday, trying to figure out what had happened, following his new opportunities, and ultimately outliving an evil president resembling Donald Trump. After thirty-six years, David finally published it as an interactive alt-history Kindle novel. He soon started, Far Beyond Woman Suffrage: The Prices of the Vote, an alt-history novelette dealing with the campaign for woman suffrage. He finished this piece in just ten months. At 81, he is bold(?) enough to plan this as the first of a six-volume set dealing with the far-reaching results and implications of woman suffrage. His completed novels and another in the works are presented for discussion on a new website, DoFancifulFlights.com
David now lives with his third wife, stepdaughter, and step-grandson near Winchester, VA. He has a son from his second marriage, six grandchildren, and two stepchildren. And a wonderful black dog with four white feet.
Giveaway Alert!
David McCracken will be awarding a $10 Amazon or Barnes & Noble gift card to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
a Rafflecopter giveaway| Oct 18 | Lisa Haselton’s Reviews and Interviews | Oct 19 | Novels Alive |
| Oct 20 | Fabulous and Brunette | Oct 21 | Hope. Dreams. Life… Love |
| Oct 22 | Viviana MacKade | Oct 22 | Lisa’s Reading |
| Oct 25 | Literary Gold | Oct 26 | All the Ups and Downs |
| Oct 27 | Andi’s Book Reviews | Oct 28 | The Avid Reader |
| Oct 28 | Long and short Reviews | Oct 29 | Rogue’s Angels Westveil Publishing |
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Thanks for hosting!
I liked the excerpt, thank you.
Thanks, Rita. I hope you read and review the book. There are many more good scenes. I’ll be back again to check for any more comments and questions to respond to.