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& suffrage centennial events
This month's song is "The Yellow Ribbon" set to the tune "Wearing of the Green" with words by Marie LeBaron (1842-1894). Lebaron was a highly regarded journalist, poet, and suffragist. She wrote for the St. Louis Daily Globe and her poetry appeared in publications such as Kansas Magazine & Appleton's Journal. It seems fitting that her suffrage lyrics should be about yellow, the color of the US Suffrage Movement. The sunflower, being the state flower of Kansas, was used by the suffragists during the unsuccessful Kansas Impartial Suffrage Campaign of 1867 to grant impartial voting rights regardless of sex or color. Adopted by the National Woman Suffrage Association of Susan B. Anthony & Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the use of yellow stemmed from that campaign. Stanton also used the pseudonym Sunflower when writing for Ameila Bloomer's newspaper, The Lily. Use of the tune The Wearing of the Green, is also very telling. First published in an Irish newspaper in 1841, it tells the story of the Irish Rebellion of 1798 in which the Irish Presbyterians & Catholics, inspired by the American & French Revolutions, sought to overthrown the British. The suffragists often used American Revolution imagery in their songs, articles, lectures, cartoons, and plays. By setting these words to another song about rebellion, LeBaron is adding further emphasis on her rebellious lyrics which clearly reference the American Revolution in the first verse, and the Civil War, and Abolitionist Movement in the second verse. The Yellow Ribbon 1876- Lyrics: Marie LeBaron, Tune: The Wearing of the Green VERSE 1 ‘Tis just a hundred years ago our mothers and our sires Lit up, for all the world to see, the flame of freedom’s fires; Through bloodshed and through hardship they labored in the fight; Today we women labor still for Liberty and Right. CHORUS Oh, we wear a yellow ribbon upon our woman's breast, We are prouder of its sunny hue than of a royal crest; ‘Twas God’s own primal color, born of purity and light, We wear it now for liberty, for justice and for Right. VERSE 2 We boast our land of freedom, the unshackling of the slaves; We point with proud, through bleeding hearts to myriad of graves; They tell the story of a war that ended slavery’s night, And still we women struggle for our Liberty, our Right. CHORUS The post was originally published in my Suffrage newsletter on April 22, 2020.
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