[272] Film at MTSU depicts women's suffrage campaign in Bahamas

FOR RELEASE: Feb. 11, 2013

EDITORIAL CONTACT: Gina Logue, 615-898-5081, gina.logue@mtsu.edu

MURFREESBORO — Women’s fight for the right to vote in the Bahamas is brought to the screen with vivid intensity in a film slated for a free public screening and discussion at MTSU.

“Womanish Ways, Freedom, Human Rights and Democracy: The Women’s Suffrage Movement in the Bahamas — 1948-1962” will be shown from 2 to 4 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 14, in the Keathley University Center Theater.

The 2012 motion picture was the brainchild of Bahamian attorney and author Marion Bethel. She was awarded a James Michener Fellowship by the Caribbean Writers Institute in the University of Miami’s English department in 1991 and the Casa de las Americas Prize in 1995.

Dr. Nancy Rupprecht, professor of history, will deliver a short introductory talk on “When Civil War is Waged by Women” immediately before the screening.

This event is organized by the Women’s and Gender Studies Program and the Intercultural and Diversity Affairs Center in collaboration with the Office of International Affairs and the MTSU President’s Commission on the Status of Women.

Refreshments will be provided. For more information, contact Women’s and Gender Studies at 615-898-5910 or Intercultural and Diversity Affairs at 615-898-5812.

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PHOTO INCLUDED: Suffragists call on Sir Robert Stapledon, governor of the Bahamas, on Sept. 21, 1960, to plead for the right to vote. From left to right are Eugenia Lockhart, Sarah Sands, Mabel Walker, Doris Johnson, Emily Purkiss and June Stevenson.

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