AUTHOR VISIT WITH DOROTHY WICKENDEN

The Agitators: Three Friends Who Fought for Abolition and Women’s Rights
Sunday, April 3, 2022
3 pm to 5 pm
Scarsdale Public Library
Please RSVP (requested for planning purposes)

In the 1850s, Harriet Tubman, strategically brilliant and uncannily prescient, rescued some seventy enslaved people from Maryland’s Eastern Shore and shepherded them north along the underground railroad. One of her regular stops was Auburn, New York, where she entrusted passengers to Martha Coffin Wright, a Quaker mother of seven, and Frances A. Seward, the wife of William H. Seward, who served over the years as governor, senator, and secretary of state under Abraham Lincoln. During the Civil War, Tubman worked for the Union Army in South Carolina as a nurse and spy, and took part in a spectacular river raid in which she helped to liberate 750 slaves from several rice plantations.

Wright, a “dangerous woman” in the eyes of her neighbors, worked side by side with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony to organize women’s rights and anti-slavery conventions across New York State, braving hecklers and mobs when she spoke. Frances Seward, the most conventional of the three friends, hid her radicalism in public, while privately acting as a political adviser to her husband, pressing him to persuade President Lincoln to move immediately on emancipation.

The Agitators opens in the 1820s, when Tubman is enslaved and Wright and Seward are young homemakers bound by law and tradition, and ends after the war. Many of the most prominent figures of the era—Lincoln, William H. Seward, Frederick Douglass, Daniel Webster, Charles Sumner, John Brown, William Lloyd Garrison—are seen through the discerning eyes of the protagonists. So are the most explosive political debates: about the civil rights of African Americans and women, about the enlistment of Black troops, and about opposing interpretations of the Constitution.

Through richly detailed letters from the time and exhaustive research, Wickenden traces the second American revolution these women fought to bring about, the toll it took on their families, and its lasting effects on the country. Riveting and profoundly relevant to our own time, The Agitators brings a vibrant, original voice to this transformative period in our history.

The paperback editions of The Agitators and of Nothing Daunted are available for purchase at Bronx River Books. For phone, email, and in-store purchases, mention LWVS to receive a 10% discount.

*Dorothy Wickenden is the author of Nothing Daunted and The Agitators and has been the executive editor of The New Yorker since January 1996. She also writes for the magazine and is the moderator of its weekly podcast The Political Scene. A former Nieman Fellow at Harvard, Wickenden was national affairs editor at Newsweek from 1993-1995, and before that was the longtime executive editor at The New Republic. She lives with her husband in Westchester, New York.

WINTER FUNDRAISER

Topic: A Conversation with Khizr Khan*
Moderator: Linda Doucette-Ashman**
Sunday, January 30, 2022
8 pm to 9:30 pm via Zoom Webinar (please click on the link to register)

LWVS is pleased to welcome Khizr Khan for an informative discussion about his life experiences, his embracing of American democracy after immigrating, and his advocacy for the values embodied in the Constitution of the United States. The evening will be moderated by former LWVS president Linda Doucette-Ashman.

This online event will be taking the place of our annual in-person winter fundraiser. As a public service, the webinar will be free to attend. LWVS appreciates donations in any amount to support our mission of encouraging informed and active participation in government.

*Khizr Khan, founder of the Constitution Literacy and National Unity Project, is an advocate for religious freedom as a core element of human dignity. After immigrating to the United States in 1980, he attended Harvard Law School and obtained his LL.M degree. He is licensed to practice law before the Supreme Court of the United States, various Federal District Courts, Washington, DC, and New York State courts. In his law practice, he devotes a substantial amount of his time to providing legal services to veterans, men and women serving in uniform, and their families.

Khizr Khan is a Gold Star parent of U.S. Army Captain Humayun Khan. Capt. Humayun Khan was a University of Virginia graduate who was killed while serving in Iraq as he stopped an attack on his camp and saved the lives of scores of U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians. He was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart and Bronze Star with Valor. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery Section 60 with full military honors.

Khizr Khan lives in Charlottesville, Virginia. He is author of three books:

• An American Family: A Memoir of Hope and Sacrifice (2017)
• This is Our Constitution (2017)
• Founding Documents of the United States of America

Khan’s acclaimed memoir and his highly regarded young adult book about the U.S. Constitution are both available for purchase (paperback versions) with a 10% discount at Bronx River Books. Follow the links above to purchase online (discount already applied to online orders). For in-store purchases, mention LWVS to receive the 10% discount.

**Linda Doucette-Ashman served as co-president of the LWVS from 2017 to 2019, after having served for several years as a member of the board of directors. During her time on the LWVS board, she served as Voter Service Chair and worked on numerous issues across LWVS portfolios. She also served as a member of the Village Planning Board, Scarsdale High School PTA Board and the Greenacres Neighborhood Association Board.

Doucette-Ashman received her undergraduate degree in mathematics from Mount Holyoke College and her law degree from New England School of Law. She is an environmental attorney who left in-house corporate work to raise her children and serve the communities where she has lived.

She currently resides in the Pioneer Valley region of Massachusetts where she and her husband, Harvey, are building their new home. She has two sons, both SHS alums, one in North Carolina and one in Philadelphia.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT LUNCHEON

How the 2020 Census and Redistricting Will Shape Political Representation
Speaker: Thomas Wolf*
Friday, November 5, 2021
11:45 am to 2 pm
Scarsdale Golf Club

Please note: All attendees must show proof of COVID-19 vaccination for admittance. This event will be held outside under the upper tented terrace with heaters.

Online luncheon ticket sales are now closed. Walk-ins are welcome but please RSVP to Anne Lyons in advance and bring cash or a check payable to League of Women Voters of Scarsdale in the sum of $55/ticket (write FFT luncheon in memo line along with the names of attendees). Credit cards are not accepted.

*Thomas (Tom) Wolf is Senior Counsel and Spitzer Fellow with the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program, where he leads the Center’s census project. An experienced constitutional litigator and strategist, Wolf advises civil rights groups, state and local governments, and others on legal strategy and policy relating to the census, redistricting, and other issues. During his time at the Brennan Center, he has organized the amicus briefing for several of the U.S. Supreme Court’s most significant democracy cases of the past decade and co-led the lawsuit that thwarted the Trump administration’s attempts to rush the 2020 Census. Wolf’s articles, op-eds, and commentary on the law and democracy issues have appeared in major media outlets nationwide and globally. He routinely speaks and lectures on law and policy at leading universities, law schools, and public policy schools.

Prior to joining the Brennan Center, Wolf was a member of the Supreme Court and Appellate Group at Mayer Brown LLP. He began his legal career as a clerk for Senior Judge Guido Calabresi of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Wolf received his JD from Yale Law School. He also holds advanced degrees in political thought and intellectual history from the University of Cambridge and urban development planning from the Bartlett Faculty of University College London, which he attended as a Marshall Scholar. He graduated summa cum laude with an AB in history from Harvard College.

REDISTRICTING 101

Thursday, October 21, 2021
2 pm to 3 pm via Zoom
Co-Sponsored by LWVW and the Scarsdale Public Library
Facilitated by Alissa Baum, President of LWVS

How familiar are you with the redistricting process? Does your district’s map represent your locale’s Communities of Interest? Learn more about redistricting in Westchester County and New York State and what you can do to ensure fair mapping.

The League of Women Voters opposes partisan and racial gerrymandering because it distorts and undermines representative democracy by allowing officials to select their voters rather than voters to elect their officials.

This webinar is organized by the LWV of Westchester* and facilitated by LWVS in collaboration with the Scarsdale Public Library. Register by providing your name and email address on the Scarsdale Public Library program page for this event to receive the Zoom link.

*LWVW is a nonpartisan organization whose purpose is to promote informed and active participation in government. The League neither supports nor opposes candidates or political parties. The League is supported by public-spirited individuals, businesses and organizations.