New Sacramento 'museum that never closes' highlights suffragists from the West

A new set of 19 murals painted on the exterior walls of Women Escaping a Violent Environment highlights women from the West who fought for the right to vote a century ago.

Conceived by a group of artists led by Maren Conrad, the “I VOTE” project at 19th and K streets in midtown Sacramento includes women from the ‘Wild West’ who boldly broke 19th century social conventions, though they may not be household names like Susan B. Anthony. Conrad said they represent “every single ethnicity, sexual orientation and background.”

Dr. Margaret “Mike” Chung, who advocated for the voting rights of Chinese-American women and broke down gender norms.

They include Naomi Anderson, an African American poet and civil rights activist, and Mabel Ping-Hua Lee, who despite her status as the first woman to receive a PhD from Columbia University could not vote even after women won the right, because she was barred by the Chinese Exclusion Act. They include Maria Guadalupe Evangelina de Lopez, who translated at suffragist rallies in southern California and helped distribute tens of thousands of pamphlets in Spanish.

“This was all done in a paint-by-number format so we could get little tiny kids on the wall, people who had never painted before in their lives, to all be a part of making sure that surrounding WEAVE there are 19 formidable, crazy, amazing women,” Conrad said. “When women are escaping a violent environment with their children, they have these women to look up to.”

The display of 19 murals commemorates the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote. The portraits, though they depict 19th Century women, include 21st Century technology — a QR code that connects the viewer to a video in which a narrator reads the story of the woman in the mural and a member of the Sacramento Contemporary Dance Theater interprets it through dance.

The murals were funded by 127 small donors and the Julie Soderlund Memorial Fund, created to honor the memory of Soderlund, a former press secretary for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s reelection campaign who died from cancer in 2016 at the age of 38.

You can find links to the biographies and dances depicting all 19 women at the Youtube Channel of the Sacramento Contemporary Dance Theatre.